


tears of the people

by babygrxxt



Category: One Direction
Genre: Belfast, Bombs, Flashbacks, IRA - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Past, The Troubles, civil rights marches, happy-ish ending, harry makes bad choices, louis makes bad choices, paramilitaries, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygrxxt/pseuds/babygrxxt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were two things that didn't go together in 1970's Northern Ireland; Catholics and Protestants, and boys and boys. Unfortunately, Harry and Louis were both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tears of the people

He had almost been asleep on that December night when he heard the honking of a car rattling against his windows. With a creak of his bones and a swear whispered under his breath, he leaned over the edge of his armchair and lifted the blinds up.

The glass was freezing to the touch and iced around the corners, making the outside world seem like a dreary artist’s dream, destined to be painted. Amongst the whirr of the snow and the onset of heavy fog, he could see a red Ford Fiesta, as bright as day in the landscape. His youngest daughter Marie was struggling to get out of the car in her six inch stiletto heels, a mission made only harder by the tightness of her pencil skirt. Harry let out a huff of a laugh and pushed himself up out of the chair, determined to reach the door before she did.

He was unsuccessful.

Marie’s keys rattled in the door, and before long she had descended down upon her father, huffing and puffing, little wisps of breath dancing through the air.

“It’s absolutely freezing in here,” she declared, frowning as she scanned the room. “How long have you been sitting without a fire?”

“You said you’d be here in five minutes,” Harry pointed out. “That was two hours ago. I couldn’t get it started again.”

Marie pursed her lips, an expression that was distinctly her mother’s. As if it was Harry’s fault she was consistently late.

“And what have I told you about getting up without someone here to help?” Marie continued, her voice getting higher and faster with each word. “You could’ve fallen and broke your hip again, or worse.”

“You’re right,” Harry said. “I should definitely spend my life in the chair, never going anywhere, never seeing anyone.”

Marie paused in her fussing and levelled her attention on her father. He could imagine with certainty the way in which she saw him; a greying old man, gone before his time, the osteoporosis eating up his bones. Maybe that would be the way he saw himself too, if he could be bothered to look.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” she accused. Harry shrugged his shoulders.

“Sometimes people don’t say what they mean,” Harry replied. Marie rolled her eyes, obviously frustrated at her father for a list of reasons that grew by the second, and continued to guide him out of the house towards her car. The ground crackled under Harry’s feet, and the fresh air burned in his lungs, unfamiliar to his cells. For a few seconds, he closed his eyes and turned his face towards the sky, revelling in the feeling of freedom.

It disappeared as fast as it had come.

Loud bangs rippled through the air as Marie hit her shoulder against the front door a couple of times, her tried and tested method for seeing whether the lock was broken. When it remained firm underneath her battering, she let out a sigh, tensed up her shoulders and flicked a piece of floppy brown hair over her shoulder.

“You ready to go now?” Harry teased, though he was enjoying the moment. Watching her, seeing her little habits, seeing parts of her that were nothing more than ghosts; it filled him with a sense of contentment, warmth that seeped through his veins even in the midst of winter.

Marie furrowed her dark eyebrows together, nodded her head sharply, and grabbed once more onto her father’s arm.

“You know, if you don’t start being nicer to me,” she said, “I’ll have no choice but to stop doing this.”

“That would mean a lot more if it wasn’t an empty threat,” Harry laughed. Marie looked at him. “You wouldn’t want to go alone,” he pointed out. “You still need your old man every time Christmas rolls around, whether you want to admit it or not.”

Marie worked a big fancy job in a big fancy law firm up in London, whilst Harry resided in a battered but loved country house in East Anglia. He pretended it was because she was so busy she never called, though both of them knew their estrangement stretched a lot further than that.

She didn’t respond, instead busying herself with popping the door open and ensuring her father was seated in a way that would comfortably accommodate his deteriorating bones. The drive was only supposed to take ten minutes. However, with Marie and her careful consideration of the icy conditions, any estimation of time was thrown out the window.

Harry considered Marie, her silhouette lightened by the blur of streetlamps. “You’re beautiful, you know that,” he said to her. She let out a small laugh, but bit it back.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve been told. I look like Mum.”

They didn’t talk for the rest of the ride.

Twenty two minutes later, Marie pulled into the same car park she occupied each year (closest to the gates, furthest from the road). She stepped out with her high heels (six inch, black, Coco Chanel, £600), nearly tripped over the curb (as always, eschewing the easier option of walking behind the car), and finally fumbled with cold fingers to get the other door opened so she could help her father out.

“You know, I can get out myself,” Harry said, as he did every year. Marie cracked a small smile, interlocking their fingers.

“You still need your little girl,” she spoke softly. “At least at Christmas-time.”

They walked together, hips bumping slightly (Marie walked like a model in those shoes), arms linked in case either slipped, along the path which contained nothing more than slush.

There were rows upon rows of granite and marble and statues of saints. Their engravings had been wiped clean by the freshly fallen snow, the flowers killed by the cold, the visitor’s treks slowly being covered.

Four rows down, six graves in, Marie stopped. She took a single red rose from the pocket of her trench coat and sat it down on top of the snow. Her fingers drifted over the face of the grave, making the writing visible.

Sgt. Richard Fredrickson, 35, beloved husband, brother, soldier.

He was blown up in a mine down in Afghanistan, the explosion that killed almost his entire platoon. There were three survivors, none of which Marie knew, nor cared about. Her husband was dead, and they were alive, and as far as she was concerned, that was all she needed to know of them.

Harry, as always, felt awkward as he watched his daughter crouched uncomfortably in the snow, ensuring none of the flakes damaged her pristine outfit. He cautiously placed a large hand in between her shoulders and rubbed a soft ‘I love you’ into the fabric of her coat. She reached her fingers up too, and grasped their hands together.

She didn’t shed a tear. She didn’t scream, like she usually did. She didn’t even wobble, though she was wearing six inch stilettos. She remained perfectly still, a frozen statue in the Tundra, and looked at the words patterned on the grave for so long that they couldn’t have made sense in the end. Then, when Harry shuffled on his feet having stood for a time in one place, she pulled herself up off the ground, threw a weak smile at her father, and nodded.

They continued walking.

Six rows down, three graves in. Harry used Marie’s leather gloves to wipe away the snow, after her commands not to let his fingers get cold.

Rita Felicity Hamilton, beloved mother, wife, nurse. The generic grave marking, because Harry couldn’t think of anything better.

He never cried. Never screamed. Never shook or yelled or damned or cursed. He always just stood there looking at the grave until his eyes burned, until his joints ached from the pain of the cold. He always stood there until he stopped thinking about her and started thinking about him.

In the graveyard, it was always so hard to picture him. So achingly hard, because this wasn’t the kind of place he would’ve liked visiting. He liked adventure. Excitement. Make-believe games. He was the boy who never wanted to grow up, and the one who didn’t. He was the boy Harry loved, with every piece of his heart and every piece of his soul. And once a year, near Christmastime (Christmas Eve, to be exact), Harry would stand before his deceased wife’s grave and think of the boy who took his breath away.

Sometimes he could pretend he saw him, moving amongst the graves, playing some kind of chasing game where the snow was lava. He would be the dragon and Harry would be the brave warrior who fought him. Sometimes he could see the blue of his eyes amongst the dark of the night, see a flash of tan skin disappear just as he reached out to touch it. And sometimes, like this time, if he closed his eyes, he could hear his voice.

_“Come home to me, Harry.”_

Every time he heard him, crisp and clear and mischievous and begging and so in love it hurt, Harry’s eyes would burst open once more, and he would be standing there in the cold, his daughter tracing ‘I love you’ onto his back, his chest heaving with some kind of emotion. Grief, maybe. Maybe grief was it.

This was stupid. He’d never even visited his grave; it was in the next country over. Louis always hated England. If Harry had’ve buried him here, his boy would find a way to come back, haunt him, and murder him. Then, for good measure, he’d bury Harry in the Republic, with a declaration that “you deserve it, you curly haired fucker”.

If Louis was there – if he was underneath the ground, underneath Harry’s feet – Harry didn’t think he’d be able to cope. Just as well he was back in Ireland, he supposed.

Harry turned back to Marie, flashed a tight smile, and nodded his head. She silently took him by the arm and led him back to her Ford Fiesta.

As they drove, amongst the mist, Harry could’ve sworn he saw him standing in the middle of the road.

He screamed bloody murder, throwing his head back.

Marie slammed on the breaks.

He had killed him.

*

“You want to explain to me what the hell that was all about?” Marie demanded, pressing an ice pack onto Harry’s forehead.

“What part?” he asked, wincing as the pack met his skin. “The part where I screamed, or the part when I hit my head against the window?”

“Both,” Marie sighed.

Harry settled back with a sigh against the old sofa. “Marie, I-”

“Who was he?” Marie said sharply. Harry raised his gaze to look at her. She’d never looked so old.

“Who was who?”

“Louis.”

The lack of oxygen came back, and it was nothing to do with the cold. Harry’s chest tightened.

“Louis?” he repeated, desperate to keep it out of his voice. As always, he failed miserably. Marie groaned.

“Come on, Dad,” she said, moving over to sit down on the floor in front of him. “That’s the name you said in the car, right before you blacked out. You saw someone. Someone called Louis.”

A pause.

“You called me Dad,” Harry whispered. The corners of Marie’s mouth twitched upwards.

“Yeah, I did,” she replied. “Is that okay?”

“That’s – it’s perfect,” Harry said. “You know I always loved you. You and your sister.”

“And Mum?”

“Her too,” he said. “I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t.”

“You loved her,” Marie confirmed. “But you loved someone else more, didn’t you?”

Harry didn’t answer.

Marie leaned forward on her elbows. “You loved Louis more, didn’t you?”

“Marie, it’s Christmas,” Harry said, and whilst he meant it to sound authoritive, it might’ve come out more pleading than anything. “Let’s not talk about this.”

“Dad, it’s Christmas,” she replied. “There’s no other time _to_ talk about this.”

Harry shut up at that. He continuously forgot this was an annual meeting, a single moment of acceptance and camaraderie between father and daughter that didn’t exist any other day apart from Christmas Eve. He took the pack off his forehead and set it on the oak table, alongside a battered copy of Robert Frost (Rita’s) and the Great Gatsby (also Rita’s).

Marie implored him with wide, brown eyes. “Please, Dad,” she said softly. “Tell me. Tell me you loved him.”

“I loved him.”

She smiled in self satisfaction. It was wiped off when another thought occurred to her. “What happened to him?”

Harry let out a little laugh. “Did I ever tell you about where I came from, Marie?”

She shook her head. No. He hadn’t. Rita was always the storyteller, because she had no secrets to hide.

“I came from a place called Belfast. You know where that is?”

“Northern Ireland, Dad,” Marie answered. “I did do A Level geography.”

“You studied history too, didn’t you?”

“What does that have to do with – wait.”

There came the pity. The haunted, wounded look anybody gave Harry the second he mentioned his home town. The exact reason why he told people he was from London.

“You were around during the Troubles, weren’t you?” Marie asked, her body leaning almost subconsciously into her father’s. She did always love the stories. Harry smiled at her.

“Yes, darling,” he said. “I was.”

“And Louis?”

“He was my best friend.”

“Oh,” Marie said. “Why did Mum never talk about him?”

“Your mother never met him.”

“Why?”

“Because he was a Catholic,” Harry answered. “Because there were two things that didn’t go together in 1970’s Northern Ireland, and that was boys and boys, and Catholics and Protestants.”

Marie seemed rapt with attention now. Like a little girl, begging her father to spend time with her. Like a little girl he used to know, before she got her life torn away from her and moved to London to get married to her job.

“Are you still sure you want to hear the story?” Harry asked. He was tired already.

Marie, of course, nodded. She wouldn’t be his daughter if she didn’t.

“Well then,” Harry said. “Let’s start from the beginning.”

*

Sometimes you meet people, and you don’t know it at the time, but they end up being the most annoying little fucker you’ve ever met.

As Harry Styles ran down Victoria Street with a bag of stolen potatoes flung over his shoulder and a cackling Louis throwing back a middle finger at the shopkeeper who’d _dared_ to underestimate his power, Harry came to the realisation that if he’d known back when he was seven just how much trouble this blue eyed wonder was going to get him into, maybe he would’ve turned around and kept marching with his pipe and his stifling shirt.

But then, where would the fun be in that?

Louis had a certain way of making everything into a game, and had done since the first day Harry ever set eyes on him. Harry’s dad and his copper friends had been marching through Belfast that aforementioned July afternoon. It had rained just an hour and a half before, so their uniforms were sticking uncomfortably to damp skin as they walked in a strict rhythm, nobody but seven year old Harry seemingly perturbed by this. The songs Harry had known how to hum since the womb echoed in his ears, the tin whistle screeching and the drums pounding.

He knew these marches better than most - had grown up with them and participated in them since he could hold his own tiny baton at four years old - and he thought that if he listened closely enough, the drumming would match that of his very own heart.

There was a fair turn-out, though there usually was. Protestants from here there and everywhere came to these yearly events to exchange gossip and harsh words. Up ahead, younger children were throwing their own variety of batons up in the air and trying desperately hard to catch them with the ease the marchers did. They used everything vaguely long and cylindrical in shape, from an old food tin to a metal bar, a twig from one of the old trees that created bluff lines around the city to forgotten wooden crutches simply pleased to have a new purpose. Toddlers and babies were jumping up and down in their mothers’ arms, only a few of them having the sense to cover their ears, the others wailing and whimpering at the noises. Harry could see his own mother and older sister amongst their ranks, waving and smiling.

Anne held up a camera and pointed at it, urging Harry to get beside his father, who was two rows in front. Cautiously, given that he was in the middle of the procession, Harry slipped from his formation and began to make his way through the parade, reaching his dad with relative ease given his small, wiry size. Des smiled at the boy with careful love, anxious not to show too much fondness lest he appear weak to his colleagues and neighbours, and ruffled his large calloused hand through Harry’s curls. The click of a camera sealed the rare sliver of affection shown by a man to his son, and Anne smiled with watery eyes. Pride at her two boys, Harry thought with a wide grin.

He made to go back to his place but his father stopped him.

“Stay up here with us, Harry,” Des said to him kindly. He didn’t play an instrument or whirl a baton; his job was to hold up a flag painted red, white and blue. Harry didn’t really know what the flag meant, but when his father was grasping onto the pole, he did so with such pride on his face that the message must’ve been important. “You’re a big enough boy to stay up here with us now, aren’t ya?”

Harry nodded enthusiastically, dimples cutting through his cheeks. He couldn’t remember ever feeling like he’d done his father so proud. He walked along with his dad, making sure to match footsteps with his, and he kept his back straight and his legs only slightly bent, for that was what his instructor told him to do. He whirled the baton around his fingers and occasionally threw it up into the air. When he did, his father let out a low whistle of appreciation, and Harry went all shades of red at the praise.

Of course, on the twelfth of July, things could only stay so good for so long.

It began with a light rustling around the crowd. A warning, perhaps, that nobody ever listened to. Harry had been at enough of these to know. He patted his dad on the side, and his father nodded abruptly, not looking down at his son.

“Just wait,” he said sharply. So Harry waited, though his palms were getting more slippery around the baton. He was going to drop it soon if they didn’t stop.   

The light rustling turned into a faint murmur, and then full out whispers, only a couple yells going through. People were wading their way throughout the crowd, and Anne and Gemma were nowhere to be seen. They’d disappeared off with the neighbours and their young children, each taking one of them by the hand and leading them back to the Styles’ house, where they would settle down with crumpets and tea.

Harry would’ve gone with them, if he’d known they were leaving. Maybe he was a big enough boy to stay for this part, too.

A couple shoves were distributed amongst the people, heavy accents calling out through the dampness of the day. Harry swallowed thickly. The marchers slowed down to a crawl.

In front of them, a bottle rolled out onto the street. Followed by another. And another.

Screams ripped through the air.

When Harry looked back, thin wisps of smoke were kissing the descending clouds above them.

His dad’s hand jutted into the middle of his back, pushing Harry to the ground with such ferocity the tip of his nose clashed with the asphalt. It started bleeding immediately, bright red against the black. Then, his dad was on top of him, shielding him with his trembling body.

The bombs exploded, one by one. A symphony of crashing noises and ripping cells, as if this was planned to go off in the same rhythm as the Twelfth of July drums. Almost ironic, Harry would note in later years, but at that moment, he was far too young to do anything but be scared. Once the last bomb went off, his father pushed himself off the ground, yanking Harry up with him.

“Go home now, Harry,” he demanded, his eyes furrowed in concentration. This wasn’t his father anymore and Harry knew it – this was Officer Styles coming out, with his fierce determination. He wasn’t known as the RUC’s best for nothing. “Don’t talk to anyone or look at anyone or anything, you hear me? Go straight home.”

Harry nodded his head with such vigour he must’ve resembled a bobble-head. The smoke catching in the back of his throat threatened to choke him, but he didn’t have an option but to press on in the direction of home. His family would be sitting worried in the floral living room only a few streets away. Anne was probably cursing the ground Des walked on. Harry could hear her protests of the earlier morning clear.

“He’s just a boy, Desmond! A boy that should be kept out of this whole horrid business. Now I’m proud of you being who you are. But if my boy gets hurt...”

“He’s not going to get hurt. For God’s sake Anne! I’m bringing my lad to the fucking parades. He’s my kid too.”

Harry raised a hand to his nose and when he pulled it away, it was stained a muddy scarlet. He wiped it away on the trousers of his uniform (he would need a new one next year anyways) and continued plodding on. The explosions and shouting were behind him now, their sounds muffled somewhat by buildings, though they still echoed off the terraced streets.

He was midway down Chichester Street when his mission was interrupted by a careful voice.

“That’s a sore looking nose there.”

Harry turned around swiftly. In all the years of his parents warning him never to talk to strangers, it had never actually occurred that he had the chance to do so.

But this boy didn’t look like a stranger. Why, he was Harry’s age, if not a little older and taller. His eyes were bright blue, and his hair lay in feathers over his forehead. He was a bit scuffy looking, and there was dirt on the side of his cheek. A sort of sixth sense kicked in and Harry frowned at the boy.

When Harry didn’t answer him right away, the boy came over a little closer. He had been coming out of a little vegetable store and was grasping onto a rather limp bag of carrots. They wouldn’t have been enough to feed one person, Harry doubted, and they appeared to have been scrounged from the shopkeeper’s refuge bin.

“You must be awful clumsy to do that,” the boy said, again trying to incite conversation. He even went so far as to gesture at Harry’s nose, not even flinching when the younger boy moved immediately away. Instead of giving up, the boy smiled. If you could call it that. It was more like a grin, showing all his teeth – apart from his front one, which was missing.

Harry couldn’t help it. His happiness was kind of infectious. The corners of his own mouth twitched upwards.

“Oops?” he said carefully, adding a little chuckle to the end for good measure. The boy laughed for longer than the joke might’ve warranted, and harder than Harry had ever seen anyone laugh at his pathetic jokes. He even grasped onto his stomach and threw back his head, before returning his gaze to Harry and wiping away a tear of amusement.

“Hi,” the boy said, thrusting out a grubby hand for Harry to shake. When Harry hesitated, the boy looked down at his palm, wiped it on his shirt (which wasn’t any cleaner) and shrugged his shoulders before offering his hand again.

This time, Harry took it. Firm, like how his father told him to shake. Shake like you mean it, like you’re a good respectable type, Desmond Styles always said.

“Hi,” Harry replied. The lump in his throat had gotten even larger. He wondered if he had that poisoning people sometimes talked about. Carbon mono ... something.

They stood there for a minute, not saying a word. The confrontation on the next street seemed to be getting louder and more like a riot. Harry hoped his dad was okay, but he’d dealt with worse, so he was sure he’d be fine (didn’t stop the worrying, though).

“Do you hear that hullabaloo?” the boy said, shaking his head in seeming disappointment. It was the kind of thing Harry’s grandmother would’ve said.

Harry tried – and failed – to suppress a laugh. When the boy appeared affronted, he offered his name as a condolence.

“I’m Harry,” he said.

“I’m Louis,” the boy replied.

“I ain’t ever spoke to a Prod before,” the boy said, gesturing to the Orange Order uniform. Harry thought very hard.

“I ain’t ever spoke to a Catholic before, either,” he told the boy. They both pondered a long time over this fact.

“Here,” Louis said, breaking the silence. Harry looked up from the ground, where he’d been paying intense attention to the way in which the paved stones fit together. “You wanna come back to my place? I ain’t got no brothers to play with.”

Harry started picking at the rag-nail on his thumb. “Neither do I, but my dad says I’m not meant to talk to strangers.”

“I didn’t ask you to my house to talk. We’re gonna play.”

“Same thing, are they not?”

Louis’ mouth went into a straight line. “I don’t think so,” he said finally, filled with authority. He sounded like he’d thought through all possible scenarios and came to this conclusion. Obviously, Harry had no other option then but to trust him.

“I still don’t know, though,” he said, his final attempt at refusal. It was getting harder not to agree with everything Louis said – he just had that way about him.

“How about this?” Louis said, changing the hand in which he held the carrots. “We go back to your mama and ask her if you can come play with me, and then we can go back to my place if she says yes?”

That sounded reasonable. “Yeah, okay,” Harry said. He beamed at his newfound friend, for certainly that was what they were. They set off for Harry’s house together, knocking their shoulders together accidentally as they walked.

“Do you want me to carry the carrots?” he asked. Louis said no, he was the bigger one, so he had to carry the carrots. That and protect Harry, which meant Louis was the one to guide Harry across every road they came across and the one who dealt the brunt of dark looks towards anyone who even dared to glance at Harry sideways.

“Mama says because I’ve got no big brother I’ve gotta learn to take care of people,” Louis explained. Harry smiled softly at him.

“That sounds real nice, Lou.”

After that, Harry and Louis became inseparable, despite both of their parents’ obvious discomfort at the situation. Their young selves were convinced it was simply because they didn’t like the way neither of them came home from each other’s houses most of the time, how they walked to their respective schools together each day through “hostile” areas of town, how they were in the habit of getting into inordinate amounts of trouble. Their older selves, of course, knew the real reason.

Their parents were worried they wouldn’t make it out of the friendship alive.

Nine years later, a teenage Louis was running through the streets, his feet pounding against the road. “Kiss my ass you grumpy ball-sack!” he yelled out, his voice reverberating through Harry’s chest, even though they were three metres apart. The potatoes were bouncing uncomfortably on Harry’s fifteen year old back, but he barely noticed them for the adrenalin running through his veins.

They tore around the corners of the streets even though no one was chasing them anymore. Harry frequently slipped and tripped on the puddles gathered from last night’s downpour, and Louis was always behind him, pushing him on and steadying him with a bright grin and a, “Come on, Styles, you fast motherfucker!”

A few blinks later and they were pounding on Louis’ front door, laughing and tittering amongst themselves. It took a couple of seconds for Lottie to arrive at the door, messy haired and appearing as if she had just awoken. When she saw Harry, she went bright red and jittery, but he barely noticed, determined only to lug the potatoes down to the kitchen and hide them under the sink.

Harry stood up from shoving them into the small space. Louis was leaning against the doorway, watching him with a smirk on his face. Harry ran his hands underneath the cold tap and dried it on one of the raggedy, moth-bitten towels, grinning at his friend.

“What are you smirking at?” he asked, throwing the towel at Louis once he was finished. Louis, with his natural born athleticism, caught it before it hit him in the face and held it under his arm.

“Nothin’,” Louis replied. Harry punched him in the arm, causing him to let out a scandalised laugh. “Okay, okay, stop with your punchin’! You got a good right hook on you now, don’t you boy?”

“Stop stalling,” Harry protested. “Come out with it.”

Louis grinned.

“You know Lottie’s got the biggest crush on you since that good-looking Austin Currie MP, don’t you?”

Harry had always had the inkling that Louis was insane. Now he actually had proof.

“Nah,” Harry shook his head, leaning back against the sink. He’d been sprouting up in the past couple months, and he was nearly up to Louis’ eyelevel now even though the other boy was two years older. He was determined to win out in the tall stakes eventually. His measurements were even written down on the side of Louis’ bedroom door in black Sharpie. “You’re mad.”

“You’ve gotta notice it, Harry!” Louis argued, though in his eyes Harry could still see laughter. “Just like that girl in school. You know her...”

“Faye?” Harry said, raising an eyebrow. Louis clicked his fingers.

“That’s the one! I always see her looking at you when you come out from school.”

Harry shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “And that’s because we’re friends.”

“Friends don’t look at friends that way,” Louis said wisely.

“By that argument, you’re fancying me too,” Harry pointed out. “Why are we even talking about this right now anyway? It’s weird.”

“Is it?” Louis asked, making his way across the kitchen to stand beside Harry, just close enough that their torsos were touching. They both looked ahead at the wall covered in paintings and drawings, some on half tacked pages, others directly on the wallpaper with crayon. “Thought boys our age were meant to talk about girls all the time. It’s all I hear Zayn and Niall yammering on about.”

“Liam’s got really boring lately,” Harry confided. “All he yaps on about is Sophia this, Sophia that. I swear I nearly vomited the other day. He’s so sweet on her.”

 Liam was one of Harry’s old friends from primary school. Their dads were part of the same police operative team. He was one of those people in Belfast who seemed to value tradition over everything else, including Harry’s friendship with Louis, which he found utterly repugnant. It wasn’t Liam’s fault though. It was his dad’s words, he just repeated them.

Louis let out a sigh. “Is there something wrong with us, Haz?” he questioned.

Harry pursed his lips together as a response. “Hey,” he said, hitting his elbow against Louis’. “You wanna go up to the tree?”

Belfast was a strange kind of city; unlike most of the others within the United Kingdom in that at any given time, you were ten feet away from a chip shop, a paramilitary mural and a field of cows, in that order. Louis had found a real good oak tree about five years before in one of the old abandoned fields no farmer cared enough to weed out, and so they often went there when there was no place else to go. It was probably one of Harry’s favourite spots, but that was almost nothing to do with the actual tree and almost everything to do with the fact that only him and Louis knew about it.

The field was a couple stones’ throw away from Louis’ small residence, and as they walked, Louis kicked up dust with the front of his shoes. He was scuffing the cheap leather, though you couldn’t much see the damage. He’d had those same shoes for the past six terms of school where Harry got new ones every three, and they were browner than black now. It wasn’t an issue though; Louis’ school had its fair share of people who couldn’t afford new uniforms.

They reached the tree just as the sun began to dip back through the clouds, illuminating the sky with a pale blush. The lights in the city lit up as they clambered through the branches, Harry first and Louis following, just to make sure he didn’t fall and break his wrist like he had in the summer of 1962. Eventually they settled against each other, Louis’ arm hovering protectively against Harry’s own, the branches scratching through the thin fabric of their trousers.

“You like it out here a lot, don’t you Hazza?” Louis mumbled slowly. He always got softer as the sun went down at night; his body melted into Harry’s own so that they were one form up in that tree, a combined silhouette to anyone who bothered looking into the oak’s branches.

“I like _you_ a lot, Lou,” Harry responded. Louis smiled in satisfaction. He knew the depths of Harry’s devotion to him, of course he did, it was just that he needed the reassurance from time to time. Louis always needed reassurance Harry wasn’t going anywhere.

“Today was fun.”

“Today was illegal,” Harry corrected. Louis waved his hand dismissively. “I’m being serious, Louis. What if we do get caught one of these days? What if –”

“You’re talking like you want us to get caught, Haz,” Louis said, in such a way that made Harry shut up immediately. “Are you planning on stopping running?”

“Well – no.”

“Good. Because as long as we keep running, old Dougal McCarthy is never gonna catch us, is he?”

“My dad’s a policeman, Lou. I can’t -”

Louis shuffled on the branch away from Harry for just a second so he could look Harry in the eye. Harry immediately felt the warmth retreating from his pale skin. “When did your conscience make a reappearance?”

“It never went anywhere,” Harry said. What he meant to say was a different thing entirely. What he meant to say was that the second Louis looked at him with those sparkling eyes and those little wrinkles by his twisted mouth Harry wasn’t quite sure how to _breathe,_ never-mind ignore Louis’ wild fantasies. “I’m just talking, okay? I’m allowed to talk.”

“It’s a couple of potatoes, Harry. It’s not like I killed his mother.”

“ _We,_ Louis. Anything you take the blame for I’m involved in too.”

“Well that’s your decision, innit?” Louis argued. He was back to leaning against Harry’s shoulder, his head heavy, like a lead balloon. His hair lay haphazardly upon the soft tan skin, sprouting up in random places where he had slept against it. Slept against Harry’s warm body, because that was how they liked to nap nowadays – together.

It wasn’t weird. They were basically brothers. It would be weird if Harry was sleeping beside one of Louis’ _sisters_ , but with Louis wasn’t... It wasn’t weird...

“I don’t regret it a day in my life,” Harry said solemnly.

Louis’ mouth went into a straight line. “We’re one and the same, you and me,” he announced. Harry laughed shortly.

“Believe me, Lou. I’m nothing like you.”

Louis then asked if Harry had a penny, to which the younger boy replied he had and searched for a good five minutes until he discovered the elusive coin at the bottom of his pocket. Upon receiving it, Louis took the penny and flipped it heads side up.

“This is you, curly, see?” Louis said, a lilt in his tone Harry knew so well even when it was deepening. “You’re the brains of the operation.”

With a flick of his thumb the coin flipped tails side. Harry furrowed his eyebrows.

“And you’re the ... tail?” he stammered.

Louis just smirked. “No,” he said, a voice of cashmere. “I’m the one following you around and beating on anyone who hurts a hair on your curly head, see?”

They were sitting in the dark. It was starry outside, and it was cold. Their breath came out in little ringlets of condensation. The air weighed heavily inside Harry’s chest, just about as noticeable as Louis’ head had been against his shoulder, and it was causing his lungs to collapse in against each other. He could feel every cell in his body alive with the thought of it, aching with each of Louis’ movements.

He moved forward slightly, so that their foreheads were pressed against each other. Louis stiffened up suddenly, a rigid pole in the oaken tree, and Harry placed a hand on his waist.

Louis’ calloused palms, probably aching from a day’s work down at Harland & Wolff (that was where his uncle could get him work experience) worked their way up to between Harry’s curls. They rested there like they were created specifically for this purpose, and they twisted in his hair until it was pulled taut against his scalp.

He couldn’t breathe. Although the city’s pollution was far away and the green, green grass was photosynthesising all day and the night’s breeze was cool and fresh, he couldn’t breathe. It was like he was having another one of those asthma attacks, although this time, he didn’t want it to stop.

Louis.

Louis was the one doing the breathtaking, because he _was_ breathtaking, ripping everything from Harry and taking it for himself. They destroyed each other each time they allowed this to happen, every time they stopped everything and just stared at each other, just considered what it would be like if they allowed it to happen...

And they were moving closer, both their chests heaving though nothing but tension passed their chapped lips...

Louis is utterly beautiful framed by the nightlight and the buzzing of midge flies and the feathery nature of his hair. He is a peacock, framed out to be nothing but impressive and gorgeous, and Harry wants to savour every part of him.

He wants to – they’re a centimetre away and their foreheads are sweating against each other – and – and –

A sharp shatter of the calm, the palpable _something_ dissipating.

Louis moved back, a crackle in the branch the only signal that it was him who broke it, and Harry retreated as well, stung.

They didn’t talk much about that night again, though variations of it occurred over the years. But never again did Harry think of that elusive _something._

At least, not out loud.

*

In 1962, a monumental occurrence happened in the Tomlinson residence.

Jay and her new partner were out at a dance hall, partying the night away for the first time since Doris and Ernest were born. Lottie was out with Daisy shopping, Fizzy went with her friend to the Halloween fireworks display, and everyone else in the house was out trick-or-treating.

Harry and Louis were alone in Louis’ house for the first time either of them could remember, and it felt nothing more than odd. (Odd and exhilarating, though Harry told himself it was because of the holiday his heart was pounding so loud and fast in his chest.)

They had plopped themselves down in front of the ancient television set in the kitchen at six in the evening, and began watching Jay’s collection of silent black and white movies she had procured over the years. Whilst Harry found it entertaining to try and work out what was happening from expressions and subtitles only, Louis had grunted and groaned with such increasing frequency throughout that it was quite difficult to get into the storyline at all without interruption. Finally, at around eight o’clock, Harry picked up the remote and clicked the TV off, turning to his friend as he did so.

“Do you _ever_ shut up?” he asked him, though he was only vaguely irritated by his shuffling. Louis could try with all of his might to be annoying, but Harry doubted that he could do anything that would cause the younger boy to lose all patience with him.

Louis grinned at his partner in crime. “Nope,” he responded in a chipper tone. “I’m _bored,_ Harry.”

“I gathered that Lou, yeah.”

“These movies are _boring.”_

“I was enjoying them...”

“We need to do s _omething,”_ Louis lamented. “The house is so quiet.”

“It’s like my house usually is,” Harry replied. “Do you not enjoy the change?”

Louis though about this for a second, then shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “Thought I would, but now it’s here, I’m exhausted by not hearing things. We need to do something, Harry.”

“What do you suggest?” Harry asked. (He had decided not to feel bad about how quickly he gave in to Louis’ complaints; after all, he knew Louis would never shut up until he did so, and also, his dignity went out of the door the second he became friends with the bright eyed, mischievous boy.)

“I don’t know, Haz,” he said, his words drawn out. “That’s your job. Make up a game or something.”

The summers in Northern Ireland were long and filled with rainy days. There wasn’t much that you could do outside when you were threatened with contracting the cold each time you ran to the shop, so Harry and Louis had soon found out that Harry was talented at filling their time with a bevy of quickly planned imaginative games. Playing Soldiers, Sailors, Doctors and Builders had soon gotten old, as did they, and so Harry found it much harder to come up with something to keep his constantly moving friend occupied.

Then, they found sports.

Harry was never as gifted as the naturally athletic Louis was, and whilst Louis spent time out and about with Zayn playing football and Gaelic, skating through the cracked streets and avoiding the Protestant areas like the Plague, Harry chilled out with Liam and his new girlfriend Sophia, watching movies and reading books. Both of them had a time in which they worried they were growing apart, but thankfully everything had fallen back together, and they were thick as thieves within a week again.

At this time, Harry came up with indoor football as a sport. They broke several vases, lamps and ripped the blinds off the windows, but Jay was never a spoilsport, and so she allowed them to continue as long as they helped her out with the repairs later on. Anne was much angrier when they destroyed her immaculate house, so they then moved to indoor hopscotch, bowling, and tennis against the back wall of the terrace home.

“What about football?” Harry suggested, shrugging his shoulders. Louis made a face, clearly displaying his feelings towards the game.

“Boring,” he replied. “Try again.”

“I was watching something with Dad last night,” Harry began hesitantly. Louis’ eyes started sparkling at that, and he leaned forward on his elbows to look imploringly into his friend’s eyes. Harry swallowed thickly and continued speaking.

“I think they called it ice hockey or something like that. It’s basically hockey, but with ice skates.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Haz, except for one thing,” Louis said with a laugh. “Where the fuck is there ice in Belfast in October?”

“I wasn’t saying we should do it on ice,” Harry said. A cunning grin crept over both of their faces, and Louis grabbed Harry tightly, pulling him into his side.

“You are the fucking best, Haz, you have to know that,” Louis declared, whilst Harry burned with pride and a little of something else at their close proximity.

The Tomlinson-Styles Hockey Tournament began that night and continued throughout the years, leading to a very tight battle for the eventual title of Supreme Sock Warrior. They slid around the wooden floors of their homes in their sock soles holding broomsticks in their hands, which they used as hockey sticks. A bundle of socks, a tennis ball, or whatever else they could get at short notice was used as a puck, and two cups were set out at the end of the hall as a goalpost.

It was highly suspicious, in Harry’s humble opinion, the way in which sometimes Louis managed to slip at just the right time in order to allow him to score the final goal, but he decided to let it slide considering Louis seemed just as happy when Harry won as when he did so himself.

The game was a perfect invention, for it allowed Louis to burn off some steam (not that he ever ran out of energy, it was as if he was a highly powered Duracell) and Harry to touch Louis on the many occasions when they fell down on the ground together and tickled each other to death. The way in which Louis’ skin burnt his fingertips was addictive, and the bright red blush on his cheeks seemed to be so much of a permanent marker on his face that Harry doubted Louis would even notice it was caused by him.

*

1964\. Two barely teenage boys sat across from each other in a stone froze bathroom, a razor blade in the younger’s hand.

“My dad never taught me how to,” the main act called out. The understudy passed the blade from hand to hand, ignoring the trembling of his pale hands. “He left before he could –”

“I know, Lou,” Harry replied. He could feel nothing but the burning cold of the bathtub and the Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I was there, remember?”

“He’s a fucker,” Louis said with a laugh. His eyes were filled with waterfalls but he didn’t dare let them spill. Harry watched Louis’ porcelain cheeks as they boiled over with heat, appearing similar to Gemma’s favourite pair of red shoes. “Leaving us all like that.”

“You don’t need him,” Harry said determinately, moving off of his seat towards his friend. He was propped up against the sink, trousers pulling against his thighs and a slight sliver of stomach visible through his white t-shirt.

“You’re right,” Louis laughed. Why did he always laugh when that was the furthest thing from his mind? “Why would I, when I have Harry Styles, shaving extraordinaire, to help me?”

Harry’s dad wasn’t the most affectionate of fathers – in fact, he could be described as downright cold at times – but at least he still came home every night. At least he read the newspaper to his young son when the words were too complicated for him to understand. At least he was there when Harry broke his wrist (courtesy of Louis) and sprained his ankle (courtesy of Louis) and bust his head open (courtesy of Louis). At least he was _there,_ full stop.

“Come on,” Harry said. “Move closer.”

Louis started shuffling over the counter, but he was still too far away. A couple inches would be too far away. Harry swallowed once more. He wished he wasn’t holding the blade so he could bite his fingernails.

“Closer.”

“Goddamnit, Styles. You trying it on with me?”

“Why do you always do that?” Harry asked. (But it was just inside his head, so no one heard it apart from him.)

Instead Harry said, “Of course not, Lou. Just need to reach your neck.”

“And then you’re going to try it on with me?”

“You sound like you’re asking for it.”

Louis gave a funny sort of expression at that. “Maybe I am.”

It was a stupid thing, a stupid joke. Nothing more. Just Louis being Louis, trying to lighten the mood. Trying to take those tears from his own eyes. Trying to appear the stronger one, as if Harry was the one who needed a father. Though the kind of protection Louis offered was never paternal, it was more loving – more like he couldn’t live in a world if Harry wasn’t a part of it.

A stupid thing, a stupid joke. Nothing more.

“Closer,” Harry murmured once more. Louis shuffled forwards.

If Harry could’ve brought himself to do it, he would’ve grabbed onto Louis’ thighs and yanked him to his stomach, like how he would’ve done without hesitation three years before. But now – when Louis smelt like starch and something fragrant – when Louis was looking at him from underneath shaggy hair – Harry couldn’t -

Maybe it would’ve been easier for Harry to just pass Louis a razor and say, “Do as I do.” But Louis was never a fan of the obvious or the easy, something Harry lov ... liked most about him.

Harry passed the shaving cream to Louis and waited for a moment whilst he smothered it over his neck. Then, with hands that had suddenly turned steady, Harry began running the razor against Louis’ skin, wincing when Louis did, not realising that Louis was just teasing.

“You try to keep it as flat as you can,” Harry explained (though he was amazed that he could talk at all, given the cotton-like feeling in his mouth).

“Do you?” Louis asked, the right corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “Interesting. You know, if I had the choice, I think I’d just let you do it every morning. Be more relaxing for me, wouldn’t it?”

“You know, if you actually shut up it would be easier for me to do this.”

“You’ve got steadier hands too,” Louis mused. “And you’re always at my house or I’m at yours...”

“I’m not shaving your face for you every morning, Lou.”

“Why not? Davey’s girl shaves his face -”

They both stopped. The razor halted in Harry’s hands, which abruptly started shaking again. This time, he brought the hand that wasn’t holding the blade up to his mouth and began chewing on his fingernails. Louis was just staring at him, floundering, his mouth opening and closing in a way that would be comic if it wasn’t so serious.

“You can’t say things like that,” Harry chastised, but there was no malice in his tone. Just sadness. Louis pursed his lips.

“I didn’t mean to – it was just a slip of the tongue...”

“Yeah well a slip of the tongue like that?” Harry’s eyes widened. “The wrong person hears... They might get the –”

“Don’t say ‘the wrong idea’,” Louis warned. He’d pushed back away from his friend at this stage, and was wiping the shaving cream off his face with an old raggedy towel. There had barely been any hair there in the first place – they’d both just started growing it on their faces – and so Harry could hardly tell where the blade had touched and where it hadn’t. “You damn well know it’s not the wrong idea.”

“I actually don’t know, Louis,” Harry snapped. He threw the blade to the corner of the sink, ignoring the chip it took out of the enamel. “One day, you’re being all nice with me up a tree. The next you’re pretending you don’t know me. Just this morning you were wrestling with me, and now? Now you’re asking me to fucking shave you? You’re not making any sense, Lou!”

“Harry, don’t you know that I know that?” Louis argued, running his hands through his hair. With it pushed up off his face, his features were even more perfectly proportioned. Even annoyed at him, Harry couldn’t cease from marvelling at his handsomeness. A handsomeness that only increased with age, it seemed.

“Well maybe if you explained things a bit more I _would_ understand you!”

“I’m dating someone.”

Harry thought the most painful experience he’d ever have was smashing his head open, feeling the ooze of blood running down past his eyes and the thick crackling of bone. But now – well, Louis had just delivered a punch worth a thousand split heads.

A bus crashing into his stomach. A hammer knocking into his ear, bursting the drum inside. A metal chain wrapping itself around his neck, suffocating him. Any of them would’ve been better.

The pain was so real and so vivid he literally stumbled back, though Louis had never touched him. It hurt with an irrepressible notion because he’d thought – he’d imagined – he’d allowed himself to hope – that maybe there was something there. But how could there be?

Sliding on wooden floors when they were home alone, playing hockey with broomsticks. Painting caricatures of each other on the back of old forgotten barns. Discovering forgotten brick houses and crumbling cottages in the Belfast countryside, hiking up the side of a mountain and avoiding the rangers, laughing and crying as they rolled down the hillsides and cut their sides open on rocks.

What was there that made Harry think of _something?_

How could he have been so stupid?

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Oh.”

He couldn’t say what he was thinking, which was a mixture of “Get out of my house” and “You fucking asshole”. He couldn’t say those things because Louis was awful vocal himself, and he knew it would just start a fight, and there was nothing Harry hated more than fighting with Louis. Nothing he’d been aware he’d hated more, until today... But the revelation that he was dating someone came damn close.

“Come on, Harry,” Louis pleaded. “Say something.”

“I’m giving up on you,” Harry said finally, so quietly he was surprised Louis even heard him.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said,” Harry replied. “I’m giving up on – on this. We’ll be friends. Nothing more.”

Louis considered Harry for a moment. “Were we ever anything more than friends anyways?”

Harry swallowed thickly. “No, Lou,” he responded. “Of course not. Now get off the counter, if that thing cracks Mum’ll have my guts for garters.”

*

By seventeen years old, Harry was dreaming about Louis all the time.

It wasn’t even in a dirty way. It wasn’t even memories that crept into his subconscious as he slept. Rather, it was things that hadn’t happened yet, and probably never would; premonitions of what might occur should Harry ever get brave enough to tell Louis what he really thought of those trousers (that they should be off him the second they got home) or what he really thought of Eleanor (that she didn’t deserve him as much as Louis thought she did).

Sometimes he woke up with tears streaming down his face and a lump in his throat because he loved Louis so much it hurt – the love became ash inside of him and like a fool he loved it, he loved it because it came from Louis, the all encompassing fire, the happiness at the end of a long day, the best friend he’d grown to want to kiss.

As they got older, there was something growing within his boy, something Harry couldn’t stop. He couldn’t possibly drag Louis back from the darkness that seemed to be consuming him slowly, painfully.

To everyone else, Louis Tomlinson was the same as he had always been; the laugher, the joker, the prankster, the court jester, and perhaps that just made the whole thing even more fucked up, because it was only Harry who saw the sadness that crept over the older boy’s handsome features when he thought nobody was looking, the silence that followed him late at night, the tear stains that seemed permanently engraved in his skin early in the morning.

Harry had reached the stage when searches through local library books for the subject “How to Save Someone” yielded no results of how to erase the teeth marks over Louis’ delicate skin or the fist shaped bruise on his rib cage, the purple shadows that haunted Harry even when he was fast asleep, printed on his eyelids, constantly waiting.

Louis kept getting into fights after school, sometimes even before. He thought that he could keep it from Harry, who still waited at their designated interface meeting area, though Harry always knew that his excuses of “the teacher kept me back” or “I forgot my PE kit” really meant he’d pissed off Tommy Macy or Grady O’Reilly and had broken their nose out the back of the chapel.

Harry wondered if Louis ever considered God’s watchful eye. He wondered if Louis cared that the Big Man could see all, could see how Louis kicked people when they were down and that god-awful look in his eyes he got when he was annoyed; that nobody could hurt him, but he could hurt everybody. Harry was pretty sure that if Niall or Zayn didn’t pull Louis away, he might never end the fight until it was over.

Louis had arrived at his room the other night, climbed through the window, knowing that Harry wouldn’t be shocked at anything he did recently. He hadn’t uttered a word, just moved in past the glass, shut the latch, and crawled into Harry’s bed when the younger boy opened up the covers for him to clamber under. Harry had been sure the older boy had fallen asleep immediately, but as soon as he shut his own eyes, trying to remain calm under the intense heat emanating from his best friend’s body, he heard a soft mumble through the darkness.

“What do you think about when you’re falling asleep, Harry?” Louis asked. He had his hands in between their torsos, and his fingers were gently stroking at Harry’s bare chest. It tickled.

“Is this a creative way of asking me if I have wet dreams?” Harry said. “Because you know...”

“No, Harry, God. Nothing like that,” Louis whispered quickly. “I’m just – ‘m wondering – do you think about your mum? Or your – your dad? Do you think about how he doesn’t like me?”

“My parents love you, Lou. Just like I do.”

“That’s a lie and you know it.”

Louis always did call him out on his bullshit. It was true that Anne loved her troublemakers very, very much. What both of them failed to say was that it was only when her husband wasn’t home.

Des wasn’t particularly fond of Louis, both because he knew himself he was involved in some pretty sketchy activities, and also because (and they all knew this was the main reason) Louis was born to a Catholic family, went to Catholic school, and prayed the Catholic way. The anger had become evident the day Harry did the Cross during the dinner prayers, and Des had gone purple in the face and demanded he never see Louis again. Thankfully, Anne managed to calm him down, but from that point on, Des didn’t even try to hide his disappointment in his son’s friendship.

“No, I don’t think about either of them,” Harry answered finally.

“Who do you think about then, Harry?”

“What does it matter?”

“You always smile when you’re asleep,” Louis said softly. He shrugged his shoulders gently, so as not to disturb the covers. It was colder than the average night. Maybe that’s why he had come. “Do you love someone Harry, is that what it is?”

Harry considered his friend for a moment, and was suddenly shifted back to another time, another place. Up a tree. It was dark, and it was starry outside, and cold, and the air had weighed heavily upon their chests. He couldn’t breathe then, and he couldn’t breathe now, because Louis was breathtaking, utterly breathtaking, and –

“What do you think about, Louis?” he asked. He hoped his voice hadn’t come out too breathy. He could blame it on the sleepiness in the morning, if either of them dared to bring up the night before (they wouldn’t).

Louis smiled sadly. “Someone I can’t live without,” he replied finally. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight, Lou.”

Harry sighed as he thought of the night, and he flipped the penny Louis and him had lamented over on the night of the oak tree. He was sitting on the pew of his own church, his foot tapping on the ground and his fingers slightly trembling.

With a weight on his shoulders and a throbbing in his temples, he leaned his head forward and pressed his hands together tightly, holding the penny in between them.

“I know you’re out there,” he began slowly, quietly, feeling a bit of a fool for being the only one out there. “And I know you’re listening. I know you brought Louis into my life, and I know he needed to be in it to make me the person I am today, but I just – I need to ask you –”

Harry inhaled sharply, feeling as if the room had suddenly gotten a lot hotter and a lot smaller.

“I need to ask you whether I should run with this. Whether I should run with him, or run from him. I need to know whether I’m doing the right thing. And I know you don’t like it, Pastor has said it before, but I just – I can’t stop myself from wanting this. I can’t stop the way it hurts. It hurts a lot, a lot more than sinning ever did. It hurts, Lord.”

His eyes fluttered open and quickly darted across the surrounding area, making sure that he was still alone. Then, he closed them once more.

“Lord, you have told us not to be immoral. You’ve told us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, and I do. I love Louis more than I love myself. Surely that’s the kind of love that could lead somewhere, Lord?”

Fumbling, he struggled to come up with a way to end. He hadn’t read the Bible in a couple of weeks now, and he had dosed off during Pastor’s sermons, but he still knew one passage like it was the back of his hand. He wouldn’t have been his father’s son if he hadn’t.

“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our – forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and deliver us from evil, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

As he stood up, Harry wondered if his father would be proud of him asking God for help.

It only took him to the door for him to realise that no.

He wouldn’t be.

*

Louis was twenty two years old, Harry was twenty, and it was 1971. The world was good and pure and burning, and when the bonfires lit up in the night and Harry sang the song along with his people, sang the song of cruelty and hate and war and anger, he could almost forget that the burning flag represented the one boy he loved the most.

St. Patrick’s Day was a controversial holiday in their little slice of the world, and it would be one until the inevitable end. Harry had told his father that he was only going outside on such a day due to the fact that Louis needed to celebrate graduating university, that he was one of the only to do so in his community due to the sudden influx of money he received at the end of high school (which Harry was forbidden to ask anything about), and because whether Des liked it or not, Louis was his best friend who had just became an engineer and Harry was proud of him.

(Harry also desperately needed a drink, because it had suddenly hit him that while Louis was moving on with his life and getting successful and a fancy job, Harry was on his second gap year because he still had no clue what he wanted to do with his life.)

They were hanging out in the pub and Louis was drink as all hell within two hours of their arrival. Harry, having only had a small glass of vodka and Coke, was sober enough to enjoy the view whilst being tipsy enough that the alcohol could be blamed for his staring.

“Liam, you uptight little fucker!” Louis yelled out once he saw Payne entering the bar with hesitancy, Sophia hanging off his arm and patting his back for comfort. Harry felt slightly bad for dragging his friend out of his comfort zone and into the Catholic areas of Belfast, but on the other hand, it was nothing but entertaining watching him and Louis battle to the death, especially when Louis was significantly intoxicated.

“Tomlinson,” Liam responded, with a face that looked like a wince. “I didn’t realise you were quite so loud!” (This was a lie; Liam had met Louis three times before, and Louis had embarrassed him royally at least six times during those meetings.)

“It’s Saint Paddy’s Day, Liam,” Louis laughed. He let out a hiccup as Niall gave him a hand off the counter on which he was dancing. “Best day of the year for drinking.”

It was with that that Louis promptly fell over the second he started trying to walk, dissolving into a titter of laughter when Niall collapsed down with him onto the sticky floor. The rest of the party resumed, Zayn trying desperately to pick his friends up (though they were fighting to stay down just as hard) and Liam making his way over to Harry whilst Sophia mingled with a couple of old acquaintances.

“Is this really a wise idea?” Liam asked over the thumping of the music. “Especially with all the recent developments?”

Liam was an enigma, in that he always knew just the right words to use when sugar-coating a situation. The ‘recent developments’ he spoke of was the increasing body count, the British soldiers landing in the city, the searches each and every civilian had to undertake before entering a shopping centre, lest they be carrying bombs or guns or something of the sort. He heard all about it in vague and disinteresting terms from his father over dinner, and never once did he or Liam say the words death, bombings or terrorists. If you didn’t say things like that, it made it easier to ignore, easier to stay on top of the situation, easier not to drown.

“This is Louis’ favourite bar,” Harry replied, rolling his eyes. “It wouldn’t matter what I said. The party follows him. We just have to go with it.”

“You let him walk all over you, mate,” Liam said.

“Maybe I like him walking all over me,” Harry responded. Liam raised an eyebrow. “I mean – thanks for coming tonight. It means a lot to have someone on ... my side.”

“Hey, as if I’d let you come to this end of town by yourself,” Liam said, hitting Harry on the back with a firm hand. “I’m with you wherever you want to go, you know that.”

“Doesn’t mean you approve, though,” Harry said. Liam smiled softly.

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “And I don’t. But you know that.”

March 18th 1971, was the day in which Harry would cast up to Liam forever more. A couple whiskeys and some pints of beer in him and Liam was up on the countertops with Louis, singing along to a song nobody else in the bar knew of, making up the words as they went. Something about “acting their age” and always feeling the same about someone, a line in which Louis sang with such enthusiasm whilst pointing to Harry that made him think what they were was definitely illegal.

Louis was wearing a “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” shirt and Harry was slightly buzzed when Louis came up to him, but not buzzed enough not to remember how Louis smashed their lips together, right there, in plain view. It was so dark and so loud and so quick and so violent that Harry barely had time to taste his lips, and then it was over, and Louis was hitting him on the back and declaring loudly, “My best fucking friend!” so Harry wasn’t sure what way to take it.

Later, they would both agree to blame it on the whisky, but Harry hoped it meant so much more than that. (Of course it didn’t, it was a two second thing and it was over in the time it took him to describe it.)

It was 3.46am when Harry and Louis finally made to stumble home, arms wrapped around each other and vodka pumping through their veins along with the remnants. Louis was the significantly more drunken of the two, and Harry could still hear the words of his and Liam’s song blaring in the back of his mind. Liam had jammed on the keyboard and Niall had banged haphazardly on the drums, and if the people partying there were any less intoxicated and happy, they would’ve definitely booed them.

Louis was still humming it lowly, eyes hooded and blinking slowly as he rubbed soft stubble all over Harry’s neck sleepily. Louis was always handsy when he was drunk – Harry had learnt it was best not to take it seriously – but still, it took some getting used to having him all over him like this, even more than usual. Perhaps if Harry wasn’t a Protestant walking through a Catholic area of the city this early in the morning, he could find it within himself to enjoy it.

“Yer ma sweetheart, Hazry,” Louis slurred, his lips tickling the sensitive part of Harry’s neck, and if anybody other than the two boys on the other side of the street saw them like this they’d get a punching, acting like queers (even if that was what – never mind). “Ma only little sweethear’, more beautiful than _allllll_ ta girls...”

“You’re drunk,” Harry responded. The boys – men – on the other side of the road were watching them with close scrutiny now, and Harry started trying to walk faster even though he was tripping over Louis’ feet every few seconds. “Now hush up, will ya? We’re gonna get a necking...”

“I’ll give you a neckin’.”

“ _Louis.”_

“Sorry,” Louis laughed.

“But you’re not sorry, that’s the problem,” Harry fussed. The men on the other side had flicked out their cigarettes, and Harry watched out of the corner of his eye as they pulled balaclavas out of their pocket and put them on their heads. With his heart thudding in his chest, he ducked into an alleyway, puling Louis in behind him.

“Wooo,” Louis said, chuckling more hard than Harry had seen in years. “You pullin’ me into an alley, Harry? You coulda told me sooner, woulda put Lottie’s good lipstick on for ya...”

‘Louis for fuck’s sake shut up’ would’ve – should’ve – been his response. But instead, he slapped Louis, right across the face.

The drunken stupor in his eyes immediately diminished, so that his pupils were almost their average size, and his eyebrows narrowed in contempt.

“What the fuck, Harry?” he snapped, but Harry motioned for him to be quiet.

“Did you see those guys back there?” he asked in a hushed whisper. Louis shook his head, and then, cautiously, poked his head out of the alleyway along with Harry. The men were still wandering the street, chatting to each other, before they split into opposite directions.

“Yeah,” Louis said, rubbing the slight welt on his face in the pathetic way he had always been able to master. “Yeah, I see them. What about them?”

“Well, should we tell someone?” Harry asked, furrowing his eyebrows together. “I mean, they can’t be up to any good...”

This time, Louis frowned at Harry, an expression that he hadn’t seen levelled at him seriously in well over a decade, if not more.

“I don’t go into your half of town and start making up stories,” Louis snapped. “I’d appreciate you not doing it here.”

“I’m not, Louis,” Harry said in frustration, because Louis was making him sound like he was – like he was a bad person, and he wasn’t. Or he was trying not to be. “And what do you mean _my_ half of town?”

Louis looked sheepish at that. He shook his head furiously.

“Nothing,” he replied. “It means nothing, Harry, God. Why does everything have to mean something to you? I’m drunk as fuck, and I just want to go home and go to bed...”

“Louis,” Harry pleaded.

“I think I should head back myself from here,” Louis murmured, and the tension was gone. He shot Harry the smallest, most timid smile he had ever seen on the other boy. It leaked sentiment, dripped from its very curve, and Harry found himself leaning in, leaning forward minutely and then –

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” Harry said, because there was a lump the size of the Mourne Mountains in his throat and he was a coward, a fucking coward. The smile disappeared off Louis’ face for a moment before reappearing, and suddenly, Harry wondered if he’d missed an opportunity to make – to make Louis’ his.

If Louis could _ever_ be his.

“Yeah, tomorrow,” Louis said, his voice thick and slurred once more with alcohol. “Call me when you get home safe, okay Haz?”

“Course ba... Louis.”

It would’ve been in character for Louis to comment on that, for him to drag out what Harry was straining to say until they were standing awkwardly in front of each other, trying to work it all out.

But he was drunk, and there was a vague sense of something sad around him now, and Harry didn’t know how to bring him back from it.

When Harry dialled up the landline the second he got in through the door, Jay answered.

“ _Harry, is that you_?” she asked, confusion evident in her tone. “ _Louis isn’t back yet. I thought he would’ve been with you._ ”

“Nah, he’s not with me,” Harry replied, twisting the cord around his finger tighter and tighter, until the tip of it was red and oxygen starved. “Can you tell him to call me when he gets home? He’s probably with Zayn or someone.”

Zayn seemed like a safe option. Johannah liked Zayn. So did Anne. He could hear Louis’ mother relax through the phone.

“ _Alright, Harry, I will. And happy Saint Patrick’s Day._ ”

Harry had been sure when he woke up at 8am to get ready for school that there would be a message on the machine waiting for him. He had been sure he’d wake up to Louis, who almost always snuck into his house during the night nowadays, hitting him around the face with a pillow and yelling at him for being such a twat the previous night, screaming something like, “You left me alone in _Belfast,_ mate? Do you know what happens to pretty boys like me at night? I coulda become a prostitute and you wouldn’t have been there to stop me!” but there was nothing there.

That was the first night of many that Louis Tomlinson was nowhere to be found.

*

Nine months later, in December, the bar they had celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day in was bombed to the ground. Fifteen people died.

Harry wondered whether he should care, because his father didn’t.

All of the casualties were Catholic.

*

When Louis received his first pay-check from his new job as an engineer, he bought a car and nothing else. When Harry tried desperately to encourage him to save his money wisely, his protests were silenced by how freeing it felt to be in a car with just him and just Louis, the wind blowing through their hair and the length of the road the only thing stopping them from going wherever their hearts desired.

“Let’s go down South,” Louis declared one morning, and even though Harry had just woken up and was still dressed in pyjamas, he grabbed a pile of haphazard clothes and jumped into the front seat beside his friend with no hesitation whatsoever.

“Do you even know your way?” Harry asked with an amused smile, and Louis made an indignant sound.

“Of course I do!” he declared. “I can feel my Irish roots calling me home.”

“You’re as Irish as I am, Lou,” Harry teased. “I bet we’ll get lost.”

“Well then it’ll be a nice adventure, won’t it?”

The rickety old car spluttered down the motorway, and Harry admired like a child in a candy shop how the trees creaked and leaned over the road, how the sky was blue and only broken by the puffy white of the clouds, how everything seemed much brighter and clearer and smoother now that they were free and away from the body count and the bombings and the news broadcasts and his mother waiting anxiously by the phone every hour his father was on the job. It was liberating, and it was Louis, and it was the best day of his life.

It wasn’t until Louis spoke that he realised he’d been staring.

“You looking for anything in particular, Harry?” he asked with a smile.

“Yeah,” Harry responded. “My best friend.”

Louis grinned at that, thinking that Harry had found him. Rather, Harry was sitting wondering whether he was anywhere to be found.

Louis didn’t smile as easy. He tried to, around Harry, but he was more anger and rage and pent up aggression than imagination and laughter and mischief. He hadn’t stolen anything in months, which at least got Harry off the hook and allowed him to live a life in which he wasn’t constantly lying to his father about where he had been, but it made Harry a bit curious as to how he paid for the remainder of his university degree.

He wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to know. The eternal struggle of friendship with Louis Tomlinson.

“Here, enough staring,” Louis teased, hitting the top of Harry’s arm. “I meant to talk to you about something.”

“Oh God.”

“Nothing bad, I swear. Well, maybe you could consider it to be bad...”

“Louis.”

“More embarrassing than anything.”

“Louis!”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Louis said, but he was already smirking. “What happened with Faye?”

Harry could literally feel himself blushing from the feet upwards.

“What do you mean?” he asked, feigning innocence. Louis burst out laughing.

“Don’t play coy with me, you dirty little fuck,” Louis said. (Harry pretended like that didn’t turn him on a bit. He was glad his clothes were still pooled on his lap, just to hide any sign.) “She phoned me, you know.”

“She did?”

If Harry could face-palm in that moment and not risk the brunt of Louis’ teasing, he would’ve.

“Of course she did! What’s all this about you calling her Louise while you banged?”

“I didn’t-”

“Don’t try to lie to me, I can read it off your face.”

“You shouldn’t be looking at my face, you should watch the road.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m an amazing driver, _and_ multi-tasker. Calling her the wrong name was a complete dick move.”

“I know it was,” Harry admitted. “And I feel shit about.”

“So you admit you called her the wrong name.”

Harry paused for a moment. “Damn.”

Louis smirked. “You can’t outrun me, bud. Now, who’s this Louise? Because that’s why Faye called me, you know. She thought I’d know Louise, but I didn’t.”

“I didn’t say Louise.”

“Well I’m pretty sure you did, because Faye said...”

“Faye heard what she wanted to hear.”

“You’re avoiding the question! You are totally avoiding the fucking question, Harry. I’m your best friend, you can tell me anything. Have we not told each other everything?”

“Well –”

“Exactly. So why won’t you tell me this?”

Harry inhaled deeply, hoping that it would give him enough time to come up with a convincing lie. He couldn’t.

“Fine. She was just this girl I met on holiday one year, no big deal. We only hung out for about a weekend.”

“Did you bang her?”

“Did I – no Louis, I didn’t. It’s none of your business anyways –”

“Do you want me to tell you all who I’ve slept with? Because I will. Okay, Hannah, Eleanor, Grady...”

“I don’t want you to...” Harry stopped for a second. It was as if the world stopped with him. “Did you just say...”

And then a Range Rover pulled into the lane beside them, nearly taking a chunk out of Louis’ new-old Peugeot, and Louis screamed bloody murder at him and spent the next ten minutes complaining about the rudeness of some people.

Harry decided just to leave it. Like Faye, he was probably just hearing what he wanted to hear.

*

The first thing they do when they reach Ireland is go to the chapel, because Louis declared he seriously needed to confess some sins to make up for the amount of fucks he let roll when the driver pulled in front of him, and apparently Harry needed forgiveness too because Faye was a “damn good girl and you fucked it up. Goddamnit I said fuck again”.

Basically, they went to a chapel because Louis wanted to, and so Harry followed.

He tried not to mention the guilt he was feeling. He tried not to flick immediately to Leviticus in the Bible that was sitting out in the main building, just to see if the passage condemning his existence had changed since the last time (it hadn’t). He tried not to glug down some holy water and see if it would take away the thin layer of sweat he got on his upper lip when he saw Louis in tight trousers, or reaching up to grab something from the top shelf, revealing a sliver of skin. He tried to mask the guilt he was feeling. He tried not to look at any of the churchgoers in the eye. And he tried desperately to look less Protestant, because he felt like a fish in a hamster cage, and it wasn’t a nice feeling.

Louis reappeared after he made his confessions to the priest, and they continued on with their journey.

Harry didn’t mention the haunted expression the priest wore as they passed him by at the door. He didn’t ask what Louis had said to make him look like that.

*

They lay in bed that night, the covers sticking to their sweaty and humid forms, and with a reverence Harry had never heard Louis speak in before, the older boy recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over again.

By the time Harry fell asleep, he had said it thirty three times and counting.

*

Even Christ the Redeemer is getting darker. The Himalayas aren’t finished growing. Even Louis was getting older.

His childhood was slipping away, and Harry didn’t know what to do.

*

“Wake me up when it’s all over, Harry,” Louis said, closing his eyes and folding his arms over. Harry knows he’s talking about the IRA, the UVF, the ‘Troubles’ (though that seems such a soft term for death and torture).

“And what if it never ends?” he asked delicately.

Louis blinked a few times fast.

“Promise me then, Harry, promise me,” he said. “You’ll put a bullet in my brain or a bomb under my car. Make it look like an accident if you have to.”

Harry made Louis swear the same.

*

Every cigarette Louis smoked took eleven minutes off his life. Eleven minutes the world wouldn’t get to experience of him.

“Lou,” Harry said softly, as his best friend puffed absentmindedly and stared at the wall of their hotel room. “You’ve smoked a whole pack today.”

Louis blew out a ring of wisps. They looked like screams. “I know,” he said. “They’re not helping anymore.”

*

Harry got a notebook from the corner shop in Cork, where they had stopped off for a couple days. He’d bought a pencil and a fancy fountain pen with the remainder of his money, and he hoped Louis had more for food.

Late at night, when Louis finally fell into a troubled sleep, Harry broke the pencil trying to write.

_You love him so much it burns to look at him. Your stomach aches when his hand crosses yours. You’ve known him longer than you’ve known yourself – decades before even that, he’s been there, eyes shining and a bright white smile that could light even the darkest of mornings._

He decides that writing might not be for him.

*

They stayed for a week in Ireland before Louis got the notion to return, a notion that appeared after what seemed to be a very harsh phone call.

“Who was that?” Harry had asked. Louis shook his head, lips pursed, and told him with determination that it was no one but his mother. Harry didn’t know what to believe.

They didn’t go straight to Belfast, though that was the only place Harry was craving at that moment. He missed his mother’s hair. He missed Gemma’s rolling eyes, and the crinkling of pages as he read with Liam, and the way that Niall would get all happy before he even drank a drop of alcohol, how he was the only one unaffected by it all.

He missed his father. He’d heard about the bombings getting worse. He hoped he had a father to return to.

No, instead they stopped off at Lough Neagh, and the sun is dipping down behind the clouds and leaving a cool purple light over the sky when they get out of the car. The night is silent, except for the chirping of snoring birds and the buzzing of the remaining blue bottles. A soft breeze moves through the valley, blowing the grass so it tickles the soles of their bare feet, and before Harry knows what’s happening, Louis has stripped off and is catapulting himself into the lake, and he has no choice but to follow him.

They splashed around together and laughed and pretended they’re mermaids and children. They could pretend it was another of Harry’s imaginary games, that they were still fifteen years old and just learning how to shave (Harry had never shaved Louis again after that day). They were good at pretending, Louis and Harry, and maybe if they had’ve kept going they would’ve never had to return from Neverland. But they were just too tired.

They stopped after about ten minutes and suddenly the water was cold. It was so freezing it burnt through Harry’s bare skin and made Louis’ tan grey. Their veins were popping out on their necks and their toes were stuck in place, unmoving, but they couldn’t tear their eyes away from each other.

“I miss you,” Harry whispered softly into the night, where the only break in the darkness came from the stars and Louis’ eyes. The corner of Louis’ mouth turned up slightly.

“I miss me too,” he replied.

The light waves were caressing them and droplets of water ran down Louis’ hair onto both of their faces. They were so close, entangled in each other, that their breaths were mingling and it tasted metallic, like blood.

Harry then realised he’d been biting into his cheek.

“Where have you gone, Lou?” he asked, touching the side of the other boy’s waist with careful insistence. Louis pressed back into his touch, and leaned his forehead against Harry’s, so the only thing stopping them was their noses.

“Do you really want to know?” Louis said. He looked up at Harry through hooded lashes and Harry could feel them both hard against each other’s thighs, and they really shouldn’t have been, because this wasn’t the kind of conversation that warranted that reaction.

“I’m not sure,” Harry admitted. “I just want to know when you’ll be back.”

“For you,” Louis said. “I’ll come back from anywhere.”

Harry held up his pinkie finger. “Promise?”

Louis smiled. “Promise.”

They kept looking at each other, not saying anything, and the moon was dipping down behind a cloud and the palpable s _omething_ was back with the vengeance of an IRA and UVF crossfire, and Harry could suddenly sympathise with the buildings falling in Belfast because it felt like he was collapsing too, his lungs and ribs into a singularity, his heart in his feet, his brain in his mouth.

“Tell me if I’m reading this wrong,” Louis murmured, and he’d tilted his head so that their lips were drifting against each other with each word.

Harry could feel a pit in his stomach, a pounding with want, and he could sense Louis’ heartbeat in his wrist and the vein popping in his neck. He wanted everything to happen at once but he didn’t want anything to happen at all, because what if he wasn’t good enough, what if he messed up, what if Louis –

And then they were kissing, there, in the lake, underneath the stars and their wet bodies pressed up against each other and wow, they were doing this.

Harry lifted his hand from the water and placed it around the back of Louis’ neck, and Louis immediately wrapped his arms around the other boy’s torso. Louis made a sound in the back of his throat that reverberated through Harry’s entire form, and both their hearts were beating in sync and beating out of their chests and Harry didn’t think there was enough oxygen in the atmosphere, suddenly.

Louis was breathtaking, utterly breathtaking, just like he knew he would be, and when the older boy pulled away, Harry leaned forward, pecking at his upper lip so tenderly that the other boy whimpered with the want, and then they pressed their lips together once more.

Louis’ lips were chapped but they felt familiar, like home. The roughness coursed right through Harry’s body, all the way down to his frozen toes, and it made him feel like for the first time in four years, he was home. He was relaxed and he was exactly where he wanted to be and he was free and he was running with it.

The _something_ had returned, and this time, Louis didn’t push away. They were running with it.

“Do you want to move this to the car?” Louis asked breathily, his cheek still pressed against Harry’s own, the stubble creating a rash on his sensitive skin. “Because I’m pretty sure my balls are going to be froze off.”

Harry nodded while he laughed, suddenly sure, and they both rushed as fast as they could to the car, goosebumps dancing against their skin.

“I won the race!” Louis declared, falling into the back seat of the Peugeot. “I won, suck my di-”

There was no conceivable way to shut Louis Tomlinson up, or at least that’s what Harry thought. Apparently pressing him down into the fabric seats, leaving bruises on his wrists, marking up his neck and capturing his lips was the single way to render Louis breathless.

This was information Harry really, _really_ needed to know.

In the back seat, they leaned over each other until they were one, until they couldn’t differentiate between Louis and Harry, until Louis’ breath mingled with Harry’s own. Suddenly, the Troubles didn’t exist, Harry’s father was a distant memory, Louis wasn’t the protector but the one being protected, and that was okay.

Harry drifted his hands down to Louis’ waist, tracing the outlines he had been admiring for so long, and his hands fit exactly how he knew they would. Louis ran his fingernails down Harry’s back and Harry let out a low groan, his mouth trembling against Louis’ neck.

Within the darkness of the night and the metal of a poorly thought out Peugeot, Harry figured out that his father was right. Louis was a bad influence.

But God, Harry was so far gone with this new direction.

*

“What do you _mean_ you disappeared to Ireland?” Anne yelled the minute Harry walked in the door, clipping him behind the ear. He raised a hand to the side of his face with a tiny ‘ow’, but his mother didn’t seem to care. “You told me you were at Zayn’s house!”

“What does it matter if I was in Ireland or at Zayn’s house?” Harry argued, though he had the sinking suspicion he was facing a losing battle. Nobody beat Anne Styles when she put her mind to something, and at that moment, she had furrowed eyebrows, Gemma’s support, and her face was pink with anger.

“Because I _like_ Zayn! I trust Zayn!” Anne screamed. “At least he wouldn’t encourage you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Zayn isn’t a saint.”

“He’s more of one than Louis freaking Tomlinson is, that’s for goddamn sure! And look at you! Your hair is a mess, Harry, you don’t look like you’ve got a proper night’s sleep in forever, and is that – is that _lipstick_ on your neck?!”

Harry went red from the toes up at that. Okay, so maybe Louis pulled into the pharmacy on the way back and got some of that lipstick Lottie let him borrow sometimes for a joke. Maybe Harry found it hotter than he probably should of. Maybe they necked in the back of the Peugeot in broad daylight, springing apart each time they heard footsteps outside the car. But really, it was Louis’ idea.

“It was Louis’ idea,” Harry offered, wincing as his mother laughed bitterly.

“As if I didn’t know that!” Anne declared. “You’re just lucky your father isn’t home, because otherwise you’d have to explain where the hell you were for the past week to him – explain that you lied to us, your parents, when we’ve done nothing but be good to you!”

Anne continued for about five minutes, her indignation becoming nothing more than background noise in Harry’s brain. He briefly saw Gemma rolling her eyes in the background and making a signal that hinted to Harry he was dead meat, but other than that he was caught up in thoughts of what might happen tomorrow, when they were back in Northern Ireland and back in Belfast and back with their parents, whether they’d ever kiss again. He wondered where they’d find that it would be safe to do it.

Then, a thought occurred to him, completely random from his line of thought.

“Wait, did you just say Dad was working?” Harry asked. Anne stopped in her rampage, levelled her gaze at her son, and let out a sigh.

“Yes,” she replied, resigned to the fact that her nagging was getting nowhere fast. “Yes, I did.”

“Why?” he said. He could briefly remember looking at the calendar in a diner on the way back home, and he knew it wasn’t July, it was January. 30 January 1972. When it wasn’t July, Harry’s father rarely got called into work on his days off, because when the parades left, peace returned.

Anne remained silent. Harry felt like she’d punched him in the stomach.

“Mum,” he said warningly. “Mum, what’s happened? Why is he at work, Mum? Mum?”

He turned around to Gemma, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Do you know?” he demanded. Gemma raised her arms up in surrender, and so Harry returned his attention to his mother.

She looked very tired. He wished he didn’t need to know why as much as he did.

“Something happened, Harry,” she said softly. “But I didn’t hear much about it before he left, just the tail end of the report over the phone.”

Harry pursed his lips together. “And what did you hear?”

“I heard it was in Londonderry,” Anne said. “There was another NICRA march. You know the civil rights malarkey everyone was talking about?”

Louis talked about it all the time. When he spoke of it, he had such angry passion in his eyes. Louis obviously didn’t think it was malarkey. Yet, Harry nodded, instead of speaking up.

Like always.

“Your dad said he needed to go in because a riot was forming,” Anne explained. “Last I heard, the Parachute Regiment was ordered into the Bogside.”

Cotton in his mouth. Sickness in his throat. A pounding in his chest.

“The army was ordered in to break a riot?” Harry repeated. Anne nodded solemnly. “Then why do they need Dad?”

Anne remained quiet. There was a thread pulling in Harry’s head, fraying with each second that passed, and eventually, it snapped.

Harry let out an almighty yell of, “Tell me!” while slamming his hand down upon the hall table. Several china ornaments smashed to the ground. Gemma yelped and moved back.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” she shouted. Not a question. A statement.

Maybe something _was_ wrong with Harry. He kissed a boy. There _must_ be something wrong with him.

“Do you not care at all?” Harry spat, turning to his sister. Her eyes went wide at first, then narrowed in determination. “Do you not give a damn that she’s hiding stuff from us, like we’re little kids? Do you not think we deserve to know what the fuck is going on?”

“I’m not having that kind of language in my house,” Anne warned. Harry let out a long, loud, mad laugh. He must be crazy. He suddenly felt crazy, with the way his mother and sister were looking at him.

“I’m not a child anymore, Mum!” Harry said. “I know what’s happening just as well as you do! I know how you look at Louis! I know why you hate him!”

“I don’t hate him for the reasons you think I do,” Anne said quietly. “And please stop shouting, Harry. The neighbours will hear.”

“You don’t think they hear you and Dad arguing every night anyways?”

That shut her up.

“For God’s sake, Mum!” Harry said. Anne looked ready to damn well boil over, and she took the towel she had over her shoulder and threw it to the ground.

“Fine, Harry! Be so loud and brash and unapologetic if you want, it won’t change a damn thing,” she said. “But if you want, I will tell you.”

“That’s all I want,” he levelled. Anne paused briefly. When Harry raised an eyebrow, she began to speak. Quickly. Like the sentence was bile in her mouth.

“The Parachute Regiment were ordered into the Bogside earlier on today,” she explained. “They tried all they could, Harry, you should know that, and they’re good men, but –”

“Cut to the chase.”

“They shot thirteen men dead,” Anne said. Clear. Crisp. So they couldn’t mishear it.

Gemma’s hand shot up to cover her mouth, and she fell back against the wall, her legs having given up on her. Harry looked from side to side, his mind rushing so fast he couldn’t bear to keep up, seeing nothing but blood and guns and violence and this was never going to end, was it?

It was never going to end, and him and Louis were never going to kiss again, because they were at war now.

The country was always going to be at war, even if London never dared to admit it.

“Thirteen more are in hospital,” Anne said, though she looked like she was drowning. “One of them is in critical intensive – Harry, where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to Louis’,” he snapped, the front door already open. It was raining. Of course.

“I never gave you permission!” Anne countered, though her determination wavered just long enough for Harry to answer.

“You didn’t need to,” he replied.

He slammed the door behind him.

*

Louis’ end of town was amassed with panic and grief. Everywhere Harry looked, he saw somebody crying, someone desperately using the payphone to hear about a loved one, somebody bleeding without blood. He didn’t dare to think what Londonderry would be like that night, or any night after that. He didn’t dare to imagine what he’d feel like if he was Catholic, and fearing for his life.

The army had made clear their boundaries now, it seemed, and the boundaries didn’t stop at killing unarmed people. Unarmed Catholics. Harry almost didn’t want to see Louis, didn’t want to hear his ranting and raving and see that anger in his eyes, but he couldn’t breathe for not, so he persevered on until the green front door.

He took a deep breath before reaching out to knock, but the door was opened before he could touch it with his knuckles. Louis grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the house.

“Fuck’s sake, Harry,” Louis said, the moment he got the front door closed. Lottie was loitering around in the hall behind Louis, and the second she met Harry’s eyes, she rushed forwards and crashed into his arms, shaking. Harry took her and stroked her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

They were family, even if they were from different sides of the fence, and family helped family.

“Are you looking to get yourself killed coming over here now?” Louis asked. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re trying to do, you stupid son of a bitch.”

“You’ve heard, then,” Harry said.

“About your stupidity?” Louis asked. “Nah, pretty sure I knew about that the moment I met you. Why I befriended you, you see, I want to be the smartest one here.”

“About the riot, Louis,” Harry said, not really in the mood for Louis’ jokes, though he knew that was the only way he could cope. Lottie whimpered at the word, and Harry just held on tighter to her.

“You know,” Louis said, motioning to his sister. “I’m beginning to think she loves you just as much as I do.”

Lottie pressed her face into Harry’s sweater and mumbled, “More.”

Louis and Harry both laughed, but when they met each other’s eyes, Harry could see the sentiment leaking out of Louis, could see the slight tears, could see the fatigue and the endlessness and the anger. Oh, the anger, burning in an irrepressible red, an unforgettable scarlet, was pouring out of his boy like a tsunami.

“Hey, Lottie,” Louis said, tapping his sister on the shoulder. “Do you mind going and getting the twins ready for bed? I want to talk to Harry about something. Alone.”

Lottie pulled a pout, but reluctantly agreed, trudging up the stairs. Two seconds later, Harry heard the scream of the twins’ names and demands that they get their “fucking asses into bed”, and he felt a sudden wave of affection at how all the Tomlinsons sounded the same.

“So,” Harry said softly. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Mum’s at work,” Louis mumbled. “You can stay over tonight if you want.”

“That sounds good.”

“We could stay in her bed.”

Harry swore his throat closed over immediately at that. He swallowed thickly, then, with shaking hands and a shakier voice, said, “That sounds better.”

Louis grinned that shit eating grin he had always been able to master, and grabbed Harry by the hand, dragging him up the stairs to his mother’s bedroom.

They’d been in there before, on occasion, when they had a sleepover. Jay always complied with her son and daughters, and so when they had friends over, she squeezed into a tiny single bed whilst the children sprawled into the double in her room. The room smelt like magnolia and freshness and Jay’s hairspray, all uniquely Tomlinson things, and Harry felt so relaxed here it was almost like he could forget what was going on outside.

He sat down on the end of the bed and took his shoes off. It was only once he finished this task that he noticed Louis was staring at him.

“What’re you looking at?” Harry asked.

“My best friend,” Louis replied. “Do you mind if I-”

Harry took his top off fluently, throwing it into the corner of the room. Louis’ pupils dilated as they raked over his naked torso, taking in every inch he’d never been able to appreciate before.

“Go right ahead,” Harry said, making it almost a dare.

Of course, Louis was never one to back down from a dare.

*

“You know what, Styles?”

“What, Lou?”

“This might just be the most fucked up thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a lot of fucked up things.”

“We just fucked in your mother’s room.”

“We just fucked in my mother’s room.”

A pause.

“Want to do it again?”

“Absolutely.”

*

They lay in bed looking at each other, Louis running a curl of Harry’s hair through his fingers, Harry tracing ‘I love you’ onto his waist.

“Do you?” Louis whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth. Harry smiled in content.

“Do I what?”

“Love me?”

Harry pressed his mouth against Louis’ until the tension went from his face, his frame; until every piece of nervousness was replaced with ‘ah’ and ‘yes Harry’.

“Always have,” Harry replied. “Always will.”

“Hm.”

Louis considered this for a moment, furrowed eyebrows making clear his concentration. Louis was always so smart. He always knew what he wanted to do. He was really, really good at engineering, really good at building things.

“You know, Lou,” Harry murmured. “When we’re older, I’m gonna take you somewhere real nice.”

“Hm?” But he was smiling.

“Maybe London,” Harry continued. “Maybe Paris. Just somewhere. And we’re gonna get a real nice house, a real nice car, and a real nice workshop for you to do your tinkering.”

“And we’ll be able to have our own bed?” Louis said.

“We’ll have a bed for every day of the week,” Harry promised.

“I can see you in a Ferrari,” Louis said dreamily. He shuffled against the covers, pressing himself even closer to Harry, if such a thing was possible. “Driving along the cobblestones of Paris. You’d probably get me flowers every day, you big sap.”

“Paris is the City of Love,” Harry mused. “They’d appreciate us there.”

“You think so?” Louis asked.

“You don’t sound convinced,” he commented.

“That’s because I’m not.”

A soft quiet descended upon the room, enveloping them just as much as the covers were sticking to their naked forms. Harry let out a little sigh, and Louis finally seemed to get up the courage to say what had been troubling him all week.

“Harry, I need to ask you something.”

“Hm?”

“Something serious.”

“I’m listening, Lou.”

“If I did something bad,” he said. “Something really, really bad. Would you still – would you still love me like this? Would you love me at all?”

Harry decided it was better to answer that question with another question.

“Lou,” he began. “Who really phoned you down South? Who scared you enough to drop everything and come home?”

“Who said I was scared?”

“You looked scared,” Harry admitted. “As scared as I’ve ever seen you.”

“Well I wasn’t,” Louis protested, but he was looking at some point over Harry’s shoulder. “Besides, Haz. You don’t want to know the answer, do you?”

“Maybe not,” Harry replied. “But I know one thing. I’m damn sick of people saying that to me lately.”

Louis pushed back on the bed. “Then let’s not talk at all, shall we?”

And because it was Louis who suggested it, because Harry always listened to Louis’ suggestions, Harry never brought it up again, and instead washed away both their fears with the taste of each other’s mouths.

“Everything’s going to be okay Lou, promise me that,” Harry said as he stood in Louis’ doorway preparing to go back home.

A small smile came over Louis’ face. “I love you,” he whispered. “And I’ll see you soon, all right?”

*

In the time it took to walk home, Harry realised Louis never promised.

*

Gemma convinced Harry to go shopping with her in July, despite the fact that violence was at an all time high. The dead had been buried, the British Embassy in Dublin was burnt down, and people seemed to find making petrol bombs a hobby (they seemed to be getting more and more inventive with their bombings lately, and the weapons were becoming increasingly advanced in their nature, according to Desmond Styles). Harry would’ve much rather preferred to stay in the house or go around to Louis’, though the older boy was out a lot more lately, than trail around stores holding Gemma’s bag, but if there was one person in the world who had just as much power over him as Louis, it was Gemma.

Once they finished shopping, they went for coffee, cradling Gemma’s multiple bags of deeply fabulous shoes. Harry wasn’t even going to pretend to enjoy it. This was made easier when it all went to absolute shit.

It started with a few bangs, as everything tended to do in the 1970’s. A little rocking of the floor beneath them, a few screams, a couple yells of “fuck me” and “what the fucking fuck is happening” (the Northern Irish are hopelessly and endlessly creative with their declarations of surprise).

Gemma grabbed onto her bags, considering them to be of more importance than her brother, and began saying, “Maybe we should get out of here” when fire appeared outside the cafe window.

Bits of stone and car ricocheted through the air, bouncing off the sides of the cafe, smashing the glass. Immediately, several people were knocked to the ground, blood leaking out of the back of their heads, their coffee companions screeching for assistance.

“Everyone get out!” somebody yelled, and for some reason, when a person screams out an order in the middle of a crowd, the entire herd of bodies decides to follow it. Harry and Gemma got caught up in the flurry, their hands barely touching as the people got in between them, but they managed to stay orbiting each other, and finally ended up in the middle of the burning street.

What he saw made fear seem like a weak word. This wasn’t some monster in the closet. This wasn’t even the terror of being spotted kissing Louis. This was something else, a deep seated dread, a premonition of death.

Fire roared out of a car, its doors exploding off their hinges and the metal singing and melding to the melting tarmac. Smoke billowed upwards, choking people in the surrounding buildings, and people were running both ways, desperately seeking to avoid the flames.

Another bomb went off down the street, a car roaring through the pain.

It seemed as if no matter where Harry went, there was pain and fire and anguish and blood. Trembling, he pressed his hands against his ears and shut his eyes so tightly he could see stars. He rocked backwards and forwards on his feet, whispering the Lord’s Prayer, and he only returned to earth when Gemma yanked him down the street, screaming that he needed to stay with her, he needed to –

Trucks began pulling up onto the streets. In the back of them were men in black ski-masks, holding machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols, petrol bombs, you name it. Everything was covered but their eyes and mouths.

Even Gemma stopped in her tracks. A few people kept running, but the majority remained rooted to the spot in fear.

You expect to be able to move away from danger. What you don’t expect is to be frozen there, staring, because you can’t quite believe the world is this damn crazy.

The men piled out of the trucks, though there were a few women brandishing guns also. One of the girls was wearing a spotted dress, and she made quick work of detonating another of the bombs down the street. Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. Maybe because Gemma had the same dress.

That was his first mistake.

The next time he looked up, there was a man in a mask staring at him, a twisted smirk evident through the holes in the fabric.

“What’s wrong?” the man taunted, moving closer to Harry. Gemma was behind him, her fingers grasping so tightly onto his shoulder it would leave a scar, but neither of them cared. “You not gonna run? You think your daddy’s gonna save you?”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. The man laughed.

“Hey, boys,” the man called out. “I’ve got Officer Styles’ kid here! What should we do with him?”

Another man, a smaller man, moved towards the first. “Nothing,” he said harshly, his voice deep. It made something inside him stir. “We’ll do nothing. Leave him alone.”

The larger man considered Harry’s saviour for a second, then agreed. “Fine,” he conceded. “But only because the bossman loves you.”

“Understood,” the smaller guy said. Harry and Gemma watched in shock as the rest of the men gradually retreated back to the trucks, though that was probably more to do with the imminent sirens than anything else.

“Thanks?” Harry said hesitantly. Gemma gave him a dig in the ribs, her eyes wide and terrified, but Harry didn’t feel scared. The smaller man’s eyes were bright blue, and they wouldn’t meet his own.

“No problem,” the man said. His voice lowered. “But I’m telling you both, you need to leave.”

“We kind of got that, thanks.”

“No, I mean you really have to leave,” the man reiterated. “Within two minutes. A bomb is going to go off here, really damn soon. Get as far away as you can. Then go the fuck home, you hear me?”

“How can I trust-”

“Promise me,” the man broke in. Suddenly, he lifted his eyes to Harry’s, and that was when he knew. “Promise me, you’ll leave.”

A sick smile made its way onto Harry’s face. “I’ll see you later then,” he said.

The man just gaped, but Harry was too busy taking his sister away to care.

*

Sometimes things happen so fast that no matter how much time you have afterwards to try and explain it, you’ll never be able to find the words.

“Okay, what the fuck?” was close enough.

Louis winced. “Listen,” he said, though Harry was too busy throwing things around the room and taking shots of vodka to do much listening. “I did technically try to warn you.”

“You’re in a fucking paramilitary Louis!”

“Well, when you say it like that...”

Harry just glared at him. Louis backtracked.

“Okay, that was inappropriate joking, I know that,” Louis admitted. “But I did warn you.”

“You said –”

“If I did a really, really bad thing, would you still love me.”

“Yeah but that doesn’t mean –”

“Do you?”

Harry stopped suddenly, mid throw. It seemed as if Louis’ newest CD was about to get the brunt of his anger, so he was probably glad he stopped. He dropped the disk onto the floor and looked at his boy.

“Honestly?” he said. “Just the same as ever.”

“Well then,” Louis said softly. “I suppose we’ll have to work this out together.”

“Together.”

Yeah, he was going to need fifty years for this to make sense.

*

A few months later, it still didn't make sense, and Harry was in this deeper than he'd ever been in anything before.

Louis rose up the ranks, or that was what Harry assumed, for he started having to hide guns in his place of residence, and then later in Harry's own house so he wouldn't be caught by the police (overlooking the fact that the commanding officer Styles). Stupidly, Harry agreed, because he saw the fear in Louis' eyes and heard the sound of the lump in his boy's throat, and he'd never been much good at denying him anything anyways.

They decided to make it a game. Louis loved making everything into one, and he proved this over and over again in these months. When Louis thought people weren't looking (though someone must've been, one of those times) he would grab Harry by the scuff of his t-shirt and pull him into an alleyway, or behind a wall, or into a closet and kiss the living daylights out of him.

If no one saw them, they must've heard Harry's pleads of, "Louis please, please" and the redness of both their faces when they emerged, Louis' soft facial hair roughing up Harry's sensitive face, amongst other places.

It was a Wednesday, eight o'clock, their designated time.Five knocks on the door, two one two, in quick succession. Anne stood up from the sofa. Harry's heart captured in his chest.

"No, no, no" he said, gently pushing his mother back down into the seat. "I'll get it."

"Harry, it's fine," Anne said. Her perfectly plucked eyebrows were drawn into a frown.

"Let him get the door Anne," Des said from his armchair, flicking through an old newspaper. He was searching for articles relevant to his latest case; to capture whoever was manufacturing new and bigger car bombs. It seemed like a big crime spree that his father was desperate to solve. Of course, the fact that Louis was an engineer had crossed Harry's mind, but Louis never said anything about bombs, and he had told him everything else, so why would he lie now? Right?

Anne relaxed back into her seat, slightly disgruntled at being ganged up on, and Harry shot his father a quick wavering smile before bolting to the door.

Louis was standing outside, pink faced and wild eyed, holding three pistols under his arm.

"What took you so long?" he laughed, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I nearly got ball froze out here."

"I started a domestic," Harry explained. "No big deal."

Louis stepped into the house at the same time as Anne's yell reverberated through the walls. "Who is it, darling?"

"Just me, Anne!" Louis called out, poking his head around the living room door for the craic of it. "Need some help with maths for work, Harry was always better at that sort of thing."

Harry almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Anne must've smiled at Louis and told him to go on up to Harry's room, because Louis did a fist pump in the air once he came back over to Harry, pressing a soft kiss onto his mouth.

"My dad still doesn't like you," Harry said as they scurried up the stairs. The pistols fell out from under Louis' arms a few times, but eventually they managed to get into Harry's room and shut the door behind them.

"I think he made that very clear," Louis replied. "Especially with the way he was looking at me. He must realise I'm corrupting his precious son."

Harry smirked, threading his fingers into Louis' shirt, which had pooled around his waist. He was getting skinnier now. Harry didn't like it. "Is that what you're doing?" he asked in a low tone."Corrupting me?"

"I think that ship's already sailed, Hazza," Louis said, pressing his head into Harry's chest. Their bodies melded into each other until Harry wasn't sure what belonged to him and what was Louis'; maybe they were the same person after all, like Anne always told them during the years.

"Do you still have that penny I gave you ages ago?" Louis asked a few hours later, when they were tucked up under the covers, Harry's cold toes pressing against Louis' ankles.

"Of course I do," Harry replied, his lips tickling a sensitive part of Louis' neck as he talked. "When have I ever lost one of your presents?"

"Okay, good," Louis said, smiling softly. "Keep it forever, yeah?"

"Of course I will," Harry said. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I just want you to remember that night," Louis replied. "Because if I had've been braver, that would've been the night I kissed you."

*

Harry was lying up on the fabric sofa in his living room chomping down on some Onion Ring crisps and watching the local news when he got the phone call.

“Gemma, can you get that?” he called out, his voice reverberating through the house, rattling through the thin walls before he realised that he was alone, and even if he wasn’t Gemma would probably refuse to be his ‘slave’ anyways.

He let out a groan and padded out into the hallway, licking the flavouring off his fingers before clicking the phone off the wall.

“Harry speaking,” he said into the landline. On the other end he could hear slight panting, and he immediately came to the conclusion that it was Louis phoning from his mobile. He briefly remembered the older boy saying something about going to the parade that evening, but his eyes were focused on something else.

Through the door of the living room, the TV screen had changed abruptly to ‘breaking news’. Billowing smoke was depicted against the pixels, and it didn’t take long for the bone-crushing realisation to come down on Harry; it was in Belfast these bombs were going off, only twenty streets away from where he was standing that very moment.

“ _Harry_.”

Louis’ voice, crisp and clear and as familiar to Harry as a lullaby, came out in short breaths. He was running.

“Louis,” Harry whispered harshly into the plastic. “Where the fuck are you? Do you know what’s going on?”

“ _Harry – Harry is your mum home?”_

Harry raised an eyebrow, but shook his head. Then he remembered he was on the phone, and so he said, “No, she’s out. Why –”

“ _I’m comin’ over._ ”

He didn’t even have time to protest before the line clicked off and he was left uttering expletives under his breath, as he usually did when he got off the phone with Louis. Long strips of red and blue light shone in through the glass of his front door, and it took a couple seconds for the sirens to follow.

Harry’s hands were shaking slightly, and a lump was forming in his throat because goddamnit, he knew what police coming to houses meant, he knew it meant taking off their caps and another tally on a war nobody would ever win and another memorial that nobody would actually pay attention to specifically because there was too many around Belfast, now.

Small, cautious footsteps towards the window beside the door meant that he could see police officers in the bombing vehicles that were quickly becoming their typical, everyday squadron car. They got out briefly, surveyed the street for whatever it was they were looking for and then returned to the front seats of the car and drove off. The stone removed itself from Harry’s chest.

 _Knock-knock-knock_ on the front door, a frantic sound that burst through Harry’s eardrums and would probably have left him deaf if he allowed it to continue any further. He quickly opened up the door, mouth already open for a full on rant about politeness and good manners and ‘Lou, you know I have elderly neighbours’ when he saw his best friend’s face.

He didn’t think there were gravestones as grey.

Louis’ eyes were wide, bloodshot and such a bright blue that it quite took the air out of Harry’s lungs, at least the minute amount that was left. There were dark circles above his cheekbones, and his knuckles were a searing white where they weren’t bloody, and then Harry saw – with a sudden, horrified gasp – the gun clasped in his sweaty hands.

“What – the – fuck,” Harry said, and he couldn’t even scream, though that’s what he so desperately wanted to do. His head was running away with him, five hundred miles a minute, and for a brief time he wondered if this was the way he went; he always knew death by Louis was inevitable, he just hadn’t expected it to go down this way. But Louis wasn’t even listening to him, it seemed.

He ran a hand – the free one, the one without a fucking _gun_ – through his already greasy hair, and that was unusual in itself, for Louis always smelt like laundry detergent and fresh flowery shampoo. And magnolia. Always magnolia.

A balaclava hung out of his pocket, inside out, the seams pointing up at Harry and grinning fiendishly at him. Harry was going to be sick, the acid burning up in his throat, threatening to spill out all over his mother’s brand new rug – the rug Louis was dripping oil from his heavy work boots onto –

“I did something really bad, Harry,” Louis whispered, so low that Harry wouldn’t have heard him if everything wasn’t so vividly terrible, ringing through his cells at such a high decibel it was driving him quite insane.

Harry shook his head. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want Louis standing there, a gun in his hand instead of a lever arch file, a haunted expression on his face rather than the characteristic smirk Harry had come to – come to love.

But Louis had to tell him. He had to say it out loud, otherwise he was going to explode, split at the edges and leave Louis shaped stains on Harry’s mum’s new rug –

“I shot a soldier.”

Harry stumbled backwards, hitting the lower part of his back against the hallway table, but he barely noticed the pain.

This was all a dream, he told himself, all a big nightmare. Or maybe it was a joke, a big joke that Zayn and Louis made up to scare Harry shitless, because they’d done that before – pretended Louis was in trouble because they knew how much Harry cared and worried and loved him.

 Sometimes Zayn and Louis never knew when to stop. This was just another of those times.

But why did Louis keep _talking?_

“He looked right up at me,” Louis said hurriedly, throwing the gun down onto the floor, taking a chip out of the wallpaper. “He looked right up at me with a bleeding fucking stomach and he said to me, ‘You don’t have to do this son.’ He didn’t get that I _did.”_

Harry got why he did. He always got why Louis did anything. Maybe that was part of the problem.

“Then one of the –one of the older – older lads... He came up and he shot the soldier, right in the head.”

Louis shuddered, and Harry felt a chill run right through his veins at the same time. Whatever Louis felt, Harry felt, and it had been that way since they were five.

Louis had killed that soldier. Harry had killed that soldier. It was all the same.

“He winked at me, Harry. He said he’d let them know – let them know it was me who did it.”

Harry supposed the older lad –one of Louis’ old schoolmates, one of the ones who smoked out the back and made petrol bombs on the weekend – thought he was doing Louis a favour. Or maybe he just wanted to save his own ass. It was probably the second option; chivalry had disappeared from the world years ago, just after the existence of magic.

“They’ll come for my family,” Louis said, and this time, he had finally slowed down. Harry found himself wishing he hadn’t, because Louis was walking over to him and sliding down the wall, sitting against the skirting board. Harry copied his actions, and then they were both sitting, shoulders barely brushing.

The first time they did this, their feet barely made it halfway across the hall. Now, Harry had to bend his legs, his knees jutting outwards at odd angles, and Louis fit just perfectly – fit just perfectly everywhere, like he always did.

Louis was like lava, in that way. He just flowed in, and filled up, and made you wonder how you survived without him – made you feel like you never did. Louis was always so good – always so nice to people, so charismatic he could take over the world – but he had a mean streak in him too, a mean streak that cut through Harry at times, that left him burning, but he never thought – Harry had never thought...

Louis let out a strangled sob, and Harry knew that was his cue to comfort him, to place a hand around Louis’ shoulder in the way that was basically second nature before – twenty four hours ago, maybe less – but now, even the thought of touching Louis made him feel like shattering onto the floor in a million broken pieces, like the china vase they broke when they were five playing at being Spiderman and the Hulk and – and –

They never bought Louis’ mother another vase. Harry just remembered that there now.

“I’m a dead man if I go back, Harry.”

Harry pursed his lips together. He didn’t think that, even if he tried to talk, his voice box would work anymore. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to talk again without vomiting.

“If I don’t go back – they’ll – they’ll all be dead. All of them. All six of my – of my...”

That was Harry’s cue to say ‘they’ll be fine’ or ‘they’ll leave your family alone’ or ‘they’re only after you’. But Harry was never a good liar, and he knew they didn’t take names. They only cared that it was 1- 0 right now, and they were on the losing side. 1 – 8 would make for a damn good celebration.

“I need to disappear, Harry,” Louis said, with sudden wild determination that this was the only viable course of option. Now, Harry couldn’t very well think of another one, but he knew he couldn’t live without Louis, so he immediately protested.

“No, no no no no,” he said, over and over again, and Louis was shaking his head as he said that and it was nothing but infuriating. “If you have to go – if running’s a plan – then I’ll go with you, as far as you want.”

“I’m not bringing you into this, Harry,” Louis said.

“I’m in it already!” Harry whisper-shouted, desperate to ensure the neighbours didn’t hear their conversation through the paper thing walls. “Whatever happens to you happens to me, you know that.”

“This is exactly why I shouldn’t have come,” Louis said, pushing himself up off the floor. Harry copied his movements, and they stood there, face to face, eye to eye, for a long time. “You’re stubborn as a mule, Harry, you know that?”

“I learnt from the best,” Harry replied. “Two sides of the same coin, Louis.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything if it’s you who says it,” Harry admitted, and Louis kissed him then with such fierce intensity and clanging teeth that it stung.

“I need to go before your mum comes home,” Louis said, touching his hand to the side of Harry’s cheek quickly, like it burnt his skin.

“But you’ll wait for me, won’t you?” Harry said. Louis looked at some point over his shoulder. “Promise?”

“I’ll see you later, Harry,” Louis said, pressing one more chaste kiss to his – his Harry’s? – face, and with that, he was gone.

As quickly as he had come, the hurricane, the main act, the tornado, the everything rolled up into one, disappeared with the click of a door.

Harry fell down to the floor. When his mum arrived an hour later with two policemen flanking her, one of them his father, he swore up and down he knew nothing.

It only took him three minutes this time to realise Louis avoided the promise once again.

*

Worry was a worse feeling than most. It lasted longer than hurt, stung more than rejection, and ached away at you more than grief. Worry was always there, lurking, in the back of your mind, and perhaps the worst part about it was that this monstrosity came from the people you loved. You didn't worry about those who were considered enemies or merely acquaintances, because you couldn't care less about them.

Harry became closer to worry as time went on and Louis was still nowhere to be found. Nobody - not even Zayn - had heard from the boy, and Jay was in a mess, so much so she almost lost her job. In an attempt to help ease her burden Harry had split his time between staying with Louis' sisters and helping Jay search for Louis once they were in bed. But Louis was much too intelligent to be found if he wanted to remain lost, so frequently, they returned back to the house cold and exhausted, aching for some kind of answer.

They got one on the fourth day.

Upon realising that his own mother hadn't seen him for a seventy hour period, Harry decided not to return to the Tomlinson residence late that evening once he'd given up on the search once more. Rather, he began the all too familiar walk through the Belfast streets towards his own house, the place where there was still marks on the walls from where Louis had thrown things and they'd hit into the wallpaper, and where their tree could be seen faintly in the distance.

As he walked, Harry observed for perhaps the first time ever the way in which the rain bounded off the streets, rushing into gratings with the rush of a great river. He saw how the stars above the city were muted by the streetlights though were still abundantly clear if one cared enough to squint. He saw the absence of the moon and the clouds decorating the sky, promising yet more rain would continue tomorrow. He could smell the green grass only a few miles away and could hear people arguing over a pint in the nearby pubs.

He loved Belfast, because everywhere he went reminded him of something. Liam got his first blowjob down that alley. Zayn grafittied that wall six times even when the council threatened to sue him. Niall once ate so much in that bar he puked and refused to look at mince and potatoes for the next six years. And then Louis.

Louis was just everywhere. Anywhere he walked was branded with his smile, his laugh, his bright blue eyes. He was such a character that even those that hated him had to admit affection towards him. He was the taste of Guinness beer after a long day of work and he was the height of the Giant's Causeway and the beauty of Cave Hill. He was the pattering of feet upon the raggedy pavements and the yells that emanated from the next civil rights march. He was everywhere.

He was Harry's best friend.

Harry sighed as he opened up the door to his house. "Mum," he called out. "It's me, Harry. I hope you have some spuds ready for me because I am starved."

When no response came, Harry furrowed his eyebrows together. "Mum?" he called out once more, slightly louder. No reply. He began inching towards the living room, terrified of what he might see.

He had a right to be terrified. His mother was sitting on the sofa, his father in the armchair, Gemma on the floor in front of the television, as they always did. But something was different. His father wasn't reading a newspaper, rather it was sitting folded on his lap. His mother wasn't knitting or watching the news. She had her head buried in her hands and her back was gently racking back and forth. Gemma was leaning against the fireplace, staring forwards as if there was something of great interest on the wall that no one else was able to see.

It was his father who spoke first.

"Fredrick called," he said. Fredrick. Harry recognised the name as one of his father's co-workers down at the police station. "It's bad news. They found Louis."

"Why would that be bad news?" Harry asked, praying that if he acted as if there was no other possible outcome that his father wouldn't utter the next words. Des pursed his lips together, veins appearing in his forehead. He looked much older than Harry ever remembered seeing him.

"He's dead, Harry."

"There was a bomb under his car. They're not sure whether to rule it as murder or suicide, given his involvement with paramilitary groups. Involvement you knew about, I assume."

Yes. Yes he knew.

"Harry," Anne said, looking up with wet eyes. "You couldn't have done anything."

Yes he could have. He could've gone with him when both of them wanted. He could've loved him even more. He could've told him how ardently he admired him, how Louis lit up every room he walked into, how school and work were endless measures of time with which Harry used to count down the minutes until he could see his best friend once more.

"We're so, so sorry," Des said.

Harry crumpled to the ground. Anne rushed forwards, and she reached her arm out to touch her son, but Harry couldn't feel a damn thing.

It couldn't be true. He would've felt it if Louis was dead. Louis would never kill himself. He knew how much Harry needed him. But then his family … Louis knew how much they needed protection, and his death would offer them that. The scores were equal now. No more fighting for a couple weeks until the next one.

He couldn't be dead. He probably just faked it. Like Batman. Like when they used to play Batman and Robin, with Harry always being Robin and Louis always being Batman. That was it. Louis was too smart to die.

*

When the rest of the congregation left the chapel that Sunday, Harry stayed behind.

He waved off the priest who asked him if he was alright. He told his parents to go on. He shrugged Gemma off when she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He didn't want anyone but Louis. He couldn't feel anything but Louis.

Slowly, he reached into the pocket of his old, distressed jeans. A cool metal coin - a penny - sat amidst his wrinkled hands, mocking him. They could've had years more of kissing. Maybe if Harry had've said - had've told him he loved him - maybe Louis wouldn't have gone down that path. Maybe they should've run away when they talked about it the first time.

It was too late now.

It was a punishment, Harry realised. They had been boys kissing boys, and boys weren't meant to kiss boys, weren't even meant to want to, yet he'd gone so much further than that. Maybe the boys at school were right. Maybe - maybe he had brought this on himself. Maybe by being himself, by liking Louis more than was normal - maybe he was the one to corrupt Louis.

And now Louis was dead. Because of him. That was the only explanation.

"Our Father," Harry began, pressing his hands together in prayer, the penny burning through both palms, "who art in Heaven. Hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive - forgive me - my trespasses, as I forgive those who trespassed against me, deliver me from temptation and evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever."

Harry inhaled sharply. He wondered if Louis had any last thoughts, wondered if he knew what he was getting himself into. He wondered if Louis was scared.

"Please Lord. Please. If this was a punishment for me loving him, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill him. Why make him so perfect if you didn't want everyone on Earth to love him? Why make him so perfect if you were just going to take him away? Why? Why - why..."

Harry must've cried for a long time, because the priest ended up phoning his parents.

Only Des came. He sat beside his son on the pew and put his arm around his shoulders and held him as he shook.

"You weren't just friends with Louis, were you," he asked, but it wasn't a question. By this point, Harry was sick of lying. He shook his head.

"I killed him," Harry whimpered. Des shook his head.

"You did nothing wrong," he said.

"But the Bible -"

"Sometimes the Bible is wrong, Harry," Des said with a sigh. "But you didn't hear that from me, you understand? Sometimes the Bible is wrong. And your love for that boy - though I didn't trust him - it was reciprocated. He looked at you like you were the only thing that mattered. I hoped he treated you well. If he did - well, then the Bible is wrong about that. You two should've been happy, and that's the end of that."

That was the last conversation Harry ever had with his father. He remained convinced of the assumption that Des knew that too, was aware that Harry had a ticket to London in his pocket and was leaving the next day.

Years later, Harry realised Des had to have known.

Harry had used his credit card.

*

"And that's the story," Harry finished, somewhat lamely. He had expected to cry, to scream and yell and break things, but he hadn't been able to be that passionate about anything since that Sunday in the church. He hadn't felt sadness like the day he finally left Belfast never to return. "So now you know."

Marie looked at her father, crouched down in front of him so her face was only a little bit away from his. "Why didn't you tell the story sooner? Why didn't you tell us, your family?"

"What would I have said?" Harry asked. He was exhausted. "By the way, Rita, I love you, but I can never love you half as much as a husband should love his wife because I'm in love with a dead man. You know your mother. It wouldn't have gone down well."

"I say you should go back," Marie replied, that stubborn look on her face that Harry knew - and loved - so well. "To get some closure. To say goodbye."

"I don't need to go back to his grave to get closure," Harry responded, a soft smile on his face. "You've given me all I needed tonight. Thank you, Marie."

Marie though for a moment. "Why did you tell me? And not my siblings. I know you're closer to them."

"Because you're the one I knew would understand the most," Harry said. "The one who knows the pain of loving someone more than yourself and losing them. I know Louis made mistakes, and I made many in my life too, namely not getting to know my children as much as I should've. I've been haunted my entire life, and now I'm finally free. I have many regrets, and one of them will always be that while I was able to live a life and wasted it, Louis never had the chance, yet I know he would've grabbed it with both hands and lived every second as if it was his last. I have many regrets, and one of them will always be not running away from it all when I could. But if I had done that, I wouldn't have had you, and that would've been worse than death. Because although I don't show it as much as I should do - in fact, I only show it once a year, on Christmas - I love you more than anything, Marie."

"As much as Louis?"

The corners of Harry's mouth twitched upwards. "In a different way, but yes. You remind me of him, you know. Maybe that's why I couldn't bring myself to look at you too long."

"Everyone says I'm like Mum," Marie said. Harry laughed.

"Your mother and Louis were very similar, Marie, and I tell you why."

Marie leaned forward, expectant.

"They were both assholes."

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed this fic, because it's one that's especially close to my heart and that has taken a lot of emotion and strength to write up about, given my personal affiliation with the subject. This is going to be my last fanfiction in the One Direction fandom, simply because I can't find it within myself to gather inspiration from these boys as much as I used to, and I don't want this lack of love to come through in my writing and make it unbearable to read. I hope you all understand and will continue to read my other fanfictions from the Marvel fandom.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, please leave kudos and comments, every single one of them makes me so so happy!


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